Can You Feel It?

By James Tealy • Jun 6th, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

The earth shook today. I was definitely rattled both emotionally and spiritually today but I mean the earth ACTUALLY SHOOK. My first earthquake. A 6.0 aftershock in Western China.

I finished singing at a little college in the mountains of Western China and have driven back into the bustling city of Chengdu. With a few moments to relax before an evening worship gathering I decided to crash on the bed. A friend questioned the rumbling first. “Is that…” was all he got out before it was obvious to both of us what was happening. “Can you feel it?”

On May 12 a destructive earthquake had ravaged Sichuan province in Western China and now several weeks later a tremor was shaking the city. The aftershock was brief and fairly minor where we were. Elsewhere 600,000 more homes had been destroyed and 8 more people had been added to the staggering death toll. We were quickly out of the hotel and in a taxi. It wasn’t hard to see any physical damage this tremor had caused. The cracks were not in sidewalks or windows but in hearts and on faces.

People had flooded back into the streets. There were already hundreds of thousands living in tents out of fear that another quake would come and they would be trapped under the rubble of their building. Now after a week of peace the ground had begun to tremble again and the fear was as fresh and new as it was on the 12th of May. The streets were full of people and the fear was palpable. Can you feel it?

My heart broke again for the people of Sichuan province, for the hurting people of China. My heart broke again for Luo who runs a little market next to our hotel. He will sleep in the tent outside his building again tonight.

When my wife and I experienced the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005 (minor compared to the devastation of this quake) we felt genuine peace and hope because of the connection with God that we have found in Jesus. It’s a rare thing to know real hope and peace. Luo hasn’t found that hope yet. Most of the 14 million people around Chengdu haven’t found that same peace yet.

As much as I long to get on a big microphone and announce the coming of hope in the person of Jesus, that’s not the way God set it up. He instead has called us to “one-at-a-time” it. We’ve been called to be PRESENT with the hurting, advocating for the oppressed, learning names, hearing stories and moving people toward a personal encounter with the living Christ. So go get your passport application HERE and start figuring out how to position your life alongside the hurting. Listen for the quaking rumble of God’s Spirit. He is moving in the hearts of the Chinese people right now. He is moving in this generation. Can you feel it?

↓ One comment

#1 Matt on June 6th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I read a great book on the whole underground movement in China that’s just amazing. It’s by a guy named Brother Yun who just had miracle after miracle happen in that fertile, open soil over there under the persecution.

http://www.amazon.com/Heavenly-Man-Remarkable-Chinese-Christian/dp/082546207X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212764994&sr=8-1

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