Successes and Limitations

 Good morning, and welcome to Thursday.  A couple of days ago, the morning at the office began with seeing news reports of the first person in Great Britain to receive the COVID virus vaccine, heralding the beginning of what hopefully will be a slowdown of the spread of this insidious illness.  The day then was punctuated by a shaking and jarring of the office by an earthquake…the epicenter of which was just a few miles away.  Now, I hesitate to make any kind of connection with these two events, and in any case, any connection I might make would be pretty much a figment of my imagination…but let’s pursue this for just a moment.

In what was surely a huge leap forward in the fight against Corona, the human race is beginning the vaccination process that will, in all probability, greatly reduce the chances of contracting this illness.  And even though multiple thousands of people have already received the vaccine, those have all been volunteers in clinical studies to determine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.  The fact that someone in the general public received the vaccine outside of a clinical study, and that many more will be vaccinated just today, and even more in future days, bodes well for humanity.  It also is a shout-out to those scientists, doctors, and others who have worked tirelessly this past year to bring a safe and effective product to the human race.

On another front, there was an earthquake in the Wichita area a couple of days ago.  Tuesday, just a few minutes before 10am, there was a deep-throated rumbling, accompanied by just a few seconds of minor shaking.  It was over pretty much before anyone had time to process what had happened.  At first, I thought there was an accident at the intersection nearby, or maybe a truck, crane, or some other large equipment had done something unexpected.  But it didn’t take long to realize that it was really a minor earthquake.

Those things have been coming on a rather regular basis for the past few weeks in this area.  I’m not sure of the cause, but they always seem to be over in the eastern part of the county.  And although there was some minor shaking and rumbling, other than a sort of eerie feeling, things quickly got back to normal.

However, there is, I think, a lesson here, and it’s connected with the vaccination of the English lady.  There may be some things we as the human race do well in terms of making life better for us all.  The COVID vaccine, along with many other vaccines, have made it possible to live longer lives in better health than at any time in history.  We have conquered smallpox.  We are working to eradicate other diseases, and our children no longer have to go through the childhood illnesses of mumps, measles, and the like.  Iron lungs are history.

Yet, there are some things over which we have no control, and which remind us of our limitations and inability to control every aspect of life and living.  The earthquake, although minor in nature, was that reminder.  We cannot yet forecast them with any kind of accuracy.  We cannot make them less destructive when they do occur, except to harden our buildings and structures against them.  We have no way to generally prevent them, although we have found that we can reduce their occurrence by limiting our injection of wastes into the earth.  Each earthquake is a sobering reminder that humanity has a long way to go before it can claim to have tamed its environment.  And even if we do manage to learn how to forecast and prevent earthquakes, there will always be something over which we have no control and just have to live with and deal with as it comes.

So, while you are celebrating the coming of the COVID vaccine to the general population, don’t get the smug head thinking that humankind has conquered all.  The moving of the foundations of the earth itself should bring you back into the reality of the fragility of life and our dependence upon a God of mercy and grace…a God who told Job,

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb?  Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,

“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been shown to you?  Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?  Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?  “What is the way to the abode of light?  And where does darkness reside?

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?  What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?   Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?  Can you loosen Orion’s belt?  Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?   Do you know the laws of the heavens?   Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?

So, as we cheer humanity’s successes, let us also understand humanity’s limitations, and give God the

Go your way today and be blessed in the knowledge of God’s providential love and grace.