God’s Power At Work in Us
Roseburg is a peaceful town in the Umpqua River Valley, known for its evergreens and waterfalls.
Many today, however, don’t know about the “Roseburg Blast” that shook the city to its core in 1959.
A truck driver for an explosives company parked his vehicle on a street in front of a building supply store. Tired from a full day of driving, he found a motel and retired for the night.
In the early morning a fire broke out in the building supply. Soon it ignited the parked truck that was carrying two tons of dynamite and four tons of ammonium nitrate. An explosion resulted that sent a mushroom cloud 2000 feet into the air.
Windows broke over 7 miles away, and the noise was heard in faraway Eugene.
Many local buildings were destroyed and glass shards went everywhere. Eight blocks of the city’s business district laid in ruins.
Fourteen people were killed and over 120 were injured.
The full impact of the disaster was hard to calculate and it took many years to rebuild what was lost.
Catastrophes like this are hard to fathom. But we can draw a personal lesson from them. There are times in our lives when we suffer such wreckage that we wonder if we can ever recover. How do we cope? What does God’s Word say?
The apostle Paul provides insight by his candid testimony of his own trials: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4.9).
He survived by trusting that God was using the problems to bring him into closer union with Him. “We do not lose heart,” he said. “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (v. 16).
Temporary troubles didn’t seem so big to Paul when he compared them with eternity. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen…but what is unseen and eternal” (vv. 17,18).
What weighs you down? God is strong enough to carry it. And He is also changing you in the process if you trust Him.
May God give us all spiritual eyesight to see His power at work in our daily lives.