A few minutes before noon on April 25 two tectonic plates nine miles beneath the surface of the earth shifted after 81 years of grinding and pushing against each other. The force of 20 thermonuclear bombs was released in a moment, and the entire city of Katmandhu was lifted permanently by more than two feet. The destruction is the worst in the 21st century and while 5,000 people have been accounted for as having died, we still do not know and will not know for years the full scope of the damage. All of this happened because the tension of two opposing masses of rock had been suddenly released. A country living on a fault line had, once again, experienced the shattering result.
Over the last several months I’ve been having frequent conversations with friends living on personal fault lines. Many people live on fault lines that are not too deep, and the pressures are handled easily. They rationalize or compensate for the minimal friction created. Some, however, are like the apostle Paul whose life prior to conversion was marked by enormous tension building up between two subterranean plates: grace and proving himself worthy of God’s acceptance. Few people have such a marked fault line as Paul’s running through their lives. Yes, we know the discomfort of having a crack on the surface, a ripped seam, an inconsistency or a nagging doubt—but not two tectonic plates moving almost imperceptibly beneath the surface against each other heading inexorably toward a quake.
Earthquakes like Nepal (and Paul) literally tear through the surface in two directions at the same time— horizontally and vertically— so everything is lifted up and simultaneously moved side to side. Rigid structures are twisted at once in two directions, and if not specially constructed they cannot withstand the dual forces. In the same way, people experiencing personal quakes are jolted horizontally and vertically. They are estranged from friends and disrupted in their notions about God.
None of these conversations are about moral issues. They are issues of vocation and belief. They are conflicts that pit one set of long-held assumptions against another and create tension in established relationships. These are foundational beliefs about work, understanding of God, the church, and change. They are opposing forces that, at some point, will either be resolved or there will be a snap that will shatter their worlds.
I sometimes have thought it was an earthquake of grace that knocked Saul off his horse that day. Those two opposing plates of acceptance and earning the favor of God had finally pushed against each other for the last time and his whole world exploded. Everything he believed was overturned and grace overwhelmed him. If there is such a thing as a good earthquake in life, then this was one of them—as it is with those now facing the same tensions. There will be a moment of the earth moving beneath them, but they and their houses will stand.
David Brooks, in his book The Road To Character, quotes the theologian Paul Tillich:
“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’ If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement.”
Grace “strikes” us is exactly right, isn’t it? It’s not passive but disruptive and often unpleasant. It upends our worlds we have so carefully constructed. But, it transforms us forever. It ultimately reconciles forces and relationships in ways we never could have imagined.