I was sitting at my desk one day when suddenly the floor felt like it was vibrating. The windows rattled. Confused, I looked around the house to see if anything was shaking or swaying. Within just a few minutes, the rattling and vibrating stopped, and everything went back to normal.

I did a quick check online, and, sure enough, what I suspected was true: our area was right on the edge of a distant earthquake. My Facebook feed was filled with posts asking, “Did you all feel that?” *

Even though this was a very small sampling of an earthquake, it was enough to be disconcerting. Questions flooded my mind:

What’s happening?

Is this for real?

What do I do?

How long is this going to last?

How bad will it be?

Is it going to happen again?

Our area is more prone to tornadoes, so we have an action plan when tornado warnings sound. We know to get into an inner room of the house that doesn’t have windows. But, not ever having experienced an earthquake before, I had no idea what the protocol was.

We have some of the same questions when our world is shaken. An unexpected diagnosis, a car wreck, a lost job, a house fire, a broken relationship–any of these and other scenarios can send us reeling. At first, we might be paralyzed with disbelief or confusion. Then when reality sets in, so does the pain. How are we ever going to put our world back together?

King David wrote many psalms during various kinds of trouble. In Psalm 62, David is being attacked and lied about. In verse 2, he prays, “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.”

A few verses later, he says, “He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.“

I love that David goes from not being greatly shaken to more firmly and confidently declaring, “I shall not be shaken.”

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, ““Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:46-49).

Hearing and obeying God’s Word builds our lives on the bedrock of truth. We’d all probably admit to being shaken to some degree in the face of devastating news. But when we remind ourselves of the truth of God’s Word about who our God is, how much He loves us, how powerful and kind and wise He is, we can leave everything in His hands. Whatever He allows, He goes through with us. He promises to be with us and meet our needs.

Samuel Rutherford said, “Believe God’s word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.”

Many Bible verses refer to God’s final judgment of the earth as a violent shaking. The writer of Hebrews says:

This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:27-28).

C. H. Spurgeon said of this passage in the June 22 reading of Morning and Evening:

We have many things in our possession at the present moment which can be shaken, and it ill becomes a Christian man to set much store by them, for there is nothing stable beneath these rolling skies; change is written upon all things. Yet, we have certain ‘things which cannot be shaken,’ and I invite you this evening to think of them, that if the things which can be shaken should all be taken away, you may derive real comfort from the things that cannot be shaken, which will remain.

This seems like a paltry illustration, but it reminds me a bit of the machine that shakes live Christmas trees before someone wraps them up and ties them to the top of your car. The shaking gets rid of the dried needles, pine cones, dust, and bugs, so you’re only taking home your lovely tree.

Sometimes God shakes up our lives to let the wasteful, harmful, or needless stuff loose. When we’re shaken, we begin to clarify what’s true and what’s important.

Psalm 46:1-3 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” Seeing mountains fall into the sea sounds pretty scary to me. But with God as our refuge and strength, we stand on firm ground even then. The psalmist concludes this psalm with, “‘Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!’ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.“

I love how the song “Still, My Soul, Be Still” by the Gettys and Stuart Townend incorporates these truths. They urge listeners, “Hold onto His ways, With shield of faith” and “Do not forsake The Truth you learned in the beginning.” The chorus repeats the prayer:

God, You are my God,
And I will trust in You and not be shaken.
Lord of peace, renew
A steadfast spirit within me
To rest in You alone.

It can be troubling when our world is shaken. But when God is our rock, we’ll be secure.

*This earthquake occurred a few years ago, not recently.

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