UPDATED: California Moves: Prayer!

UPDATED July 8th at 9:45am:

From Radio Ink:

While the entire United States was celebrating the long 4th of July weekend, the state of California was rocking….literally. Big earthquakes followed by hundreds of aftershocks shook the state. KFI Program Director Robin Bertolucci tells Radio Ink KFI was on the air live when the studio in Burbank started shaking. [read more]

UPDATED July 6th at 3:34pm

Months of aftershocks could follow big California earthquake

It was a cooler than usual 4^th of July, even a breezy morning, as this write was seated with fellow church members manning our Snow Cone Booth for the Green Valley Days Celebration at the community center.   Then, I felt as though someone was pushing at the back of my lawn chair. No . . . the chair is being moved about rather sharply . . . rolling.   “Earthquake!”   We all said to each other.

I do not know specific details of how broadly this reported 6.4 quake was felt, but I have had many family and friends reporting to me that it was felt by them in these areas: San Clemente, Riverside, Indio, Bakersfield, and Fresno, plus one reporting having felt it in Los Vegas, Nevada.

The epicenter for this reported 6.4 quake was a point between the city of Ridgecrest and the township of Trona.   I have family and friends in both locations.   All of whom are “shook up!”

At approximately 4:07 am today, there was an aftershock of 5.0, not to be unexpected in a hail of an estimated 500+ aftershocks of varying degrees of intensity.

Caltech Seismologist Lucy Jones is quoted by this writer as having said, “There is a 1 in 20 chance this area will have an even bigger quake in the next few days.”  An estimate of as many as 700 aftershocks of magnitude 3 or greater was stated by the USGS.   Chief Meteorologist Alissa Carlson reported, “The average earthquake of this size (6.4) produces an aftershock as large as 5.4, with about 10 aftershocks of 4.4 or larger.”

With all this earth movement, a natural question on many a lip may be, “What’s goin’ on here?”

Science will give many explanations to such questions, however, for all who believe in God, earthquakes, like all other natural disasters, are understood to be the consequence of the chaos that fallen man pass onto the earth through his disobedience to God. Nevertheless, like so many other disasters, earthquakes can, and should, stimulate our awareness to our mortality and remind us that there is an afterlife we must be prepared to meet. Ultimately, our salvation is more importance than our possessions.

None the less, this writer is also concerned with the terrors which many feel in these days, and so he offers this prayer, among many more:

Almighty God, my LORD and my Savior, I come in humility and compassion seeking an audience on behalf of my many friends, family, and the general citizens of California affected by these recent earthquakes. Dear Father, multitude are terrorized by the shaking of their world, understandably so. I ask that You might choose to calm their spirits, ease their fears, so that they might, in rationality, reach out to You, the One Who saves.   Please protect lives and receive many, many young and old men and women, girls and boys unto salvation, securing an eternal home with You one day. And, if it pleases You, Dear LORD, calm the core of this earth for a season, In Jesus’ name I ask, Amen!

UPDATE 4:16am Saturday, July 6th:

Another, stronger quake in Ridgecrest shakes Southern California, causing more damage
A magnitude 7.1

Read in Los Angeles Times: https://apple.news/ARbz_edWYTQGL1t3O0DtEyg

Shared from Apple News

Southern California reels from magnitude 7.1 quake