“It’s a heartache . . . so hard to live. Kill or cure!”
This was the plea of a dear Nepali friend of mine today. It's hard to hear my friends crying in pain.
After being hammered by the 7.8 earthquake seventeen days ago, this morning they were slammed by another 7.3 earthquake. In between these major quakes, they’ve had hundreds of aftershocks.
Most of the aftershocks are physical. But some are spiritual.
Plate tectonics explain that the Indian subcontinent is subducting under the Eurasian plate, creating the spectacular Himalayas and predictable earthquakes. Not surprisingly, explanations of plate tectonics are small comfort to the people that live there.
Nepal is a country of spiritual people. Nepal is the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, more popularly known as the Buddha. The largest majority of Nepalis identify themselves as Hindu. There are small minorities of Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians. Only around one-half percent of Nepalis describe themselves as “non-religious”.
In the days immediately following the April 25, 2015 earthquake, there were a number of news reports describing the spiritual interpretations of the cataclysm by the local people. The most frequent interpretation was that Nepalis had angered the gods by their unfaithfulness.
Hopefully, Christians are looking at these and similar events through the lens of Scripture.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” Romans 8:22-23 (NIV).
My Nepali friend is right. The events in Nepal are heartaches. There is only one eternal cure.
I groan with them, and can only respond with compassion. You can too. http://goo.gl/f9SvFa
