Losing Everything

How would you cope if everything you owned was suddenly gone? What would you do if you not only lost all your possessions but your family was completely wiped out? Would you be able to rebuild your life if you lost everything?

Yesterday marked a year since heart breaking floods swept through parts of Queensland. Lives were lost, homes were destroyed, some people lost everything.

The earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan last year were absolutely devastating. We saw vision of entire towns being destroyed as a massive, surging wall of water forced its way through community after community. The death toll was over 15 000 with many more lost or injured. We don’t have to think back too far to remember the Haitian earthquake that killed around 220 000, injured more than 300 000 and affected 3.5 million people. At the end of 2004 there was the Tsunami that killed over 230 000 people in fourteen countries

Over the last several years we’ve seen an increase in floods, earthquakes, fires, natural disasters, wars and continuing instability in various regions around the world.

It seems that millions of people around the world are being faced with the reality of losing everything. World events have caused me to ask myself how I would cope in such a situation.

Sometimes the loss isn’t on such a large scale. We hear of family homes burning down leaving the occupants with just the clothes on their backs. How do you recover from something like that?

Where is my security?

The question I’m forced to ask is, “Where is my security?” Am I placing my security in the ‘stuff’ I accumulate? Is my security in my family or friends? Do I place my security in my own health? All of these could be ripped away from me in seconds.

I’ve seen brave people on television talking about how they’ve rebuilt their lives after tragedy. Could I do that? Could you?

My hope is that I’m never faced with having to rebuild my after losing everything but if something did happen I hope that I would put my security in the only real constant I know.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39

How would you begin again if you ever lost everything?



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The End of the World

Floods, earthquakes, fires, natural disasters, wars and continuing instability in various regions around the world. Are we in the end times?

Going right back to biblical times people have been watching the signs and events around them and predicting the end of the world. Some have actually tried to predict dates but those dates have just sailed past, making many people cynical about the whole topic.

Wars and disasters have always been happening but in recent days there has been a major increase in natural disasters. Does this mean that we’re facing the end of the world? What does the Bible really say?

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Rev Dr Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales . Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

This week we tackled the issue of the end times and discussed whether what we’re seeing might be signs of what’s to come. This is a question that Ross is being asked more and more by a variety of people both inside and outside the church. You can hear what Ross had to say by clicking the play button on the audio player below.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/SPI030411_1413.mp3]

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