As you probably already know, a major earthquake hit the islands of Japan on Friday.  With a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter Scale, this places this earthquake within the top five worst earthquakes since 1900.

Hundreds are dead.  Thousands are unaccounted for.  The quake caused massive tsunamis that added to the devastation, and reached as far as the west coast of North and South America.

The quake also caused damage at the nuclear energy facility in the city Fukushima, resulting in a radiation leak that is growing more ominous by the moment.

And added to all of this are the aftershocks and additional earthquakes that continue to hit the islands.

This is a terrible tragedy.  The loss of life and property is staggering, even horrific.

But there are a few things we can learn from this catastrophe.  Here are a three things that come to my mind.

Titus

Titus lied to my wife the other day.

He’s six. He’s going through that stage where he thinks he can get away with whatever it is that he did by lying about it. He doesn’t realize that his lies are obvious.

And so he tried it the other day. He was supposed to brush his teeth before bed. Heather asked him if he had done that simple task. He said yes. However, his toothbrush was dry and he still had food in his mouth.

He lied.

After his punishment, he and I had a good talk about honesty. I think I kept it down on his level… mainly.

We discussed lying and telling the truth. We talked about honesty. We mentioned that Jesus is, after all, the truth. And we talked about how to live lives that reflected God’s ways.

Titus is only six, but he’s all boy. By this point in the conversation, he was feeling pretty contrite. His eyes were swimming with tears, but he wasn’t crying. Not yet. I guess it’s some pre-programmed macho instinct us guys have wired into us. We just have to be tough. Tears aren’t tough.

Titus’ eyes are brimming with moisture, but there’s no drippage yet, so he’s not crying. He looked at me and said, “But God’s ways are hard!”

For the past few weeks, I’ve been really thinking and praying about what I need to soak into my life over the next several months in my reading schedule. I’ve actually been adding books to a stack tha has become my “To-Be-Read-Next-Year-Stack.” I’ve gathered, prayed over and sorted my list down to a manageable size. And by “manageable,” I mean I’ve narrowed it down to about thirty-five books that I feel like God will use to teach me this year. Thirty-five! Out of dozens more that looked like I would /could gain from reading them.

I know that this is possible for me, because I’ve read over sixty books over the past year, for 2009-2010. But it just seems so overwhelming…

And I know there will be several other books that will make it onto my shelf to be read this year as well. For instance, anything new that Ted Dekker releases will probably take immediate priority. I just can’t help it. Dekker gets my top priority whenever he releases a new book. Regardlss of what I might be in the middle of. It’s just that simple.

And so, after browsing in bookstores, and Amazon, and my own personal library for the past few months… And after praying over the books that I’ve pulled from the shelves or purchased… I feel like God has identified these books to meet needs in my life and in the lives of my family, and eventually in the life of our congregation.

The impact these authors could have in my life is potentially enormous. I pray that I’m big enough to take it all in, and process it, and grow from it…

I plan to post my reading list here in a few days. If you have read any of the books I list, and want to make a comment about them, I would love to hear it. And thank you for it. Or if you have any suggestions that you think I need to add to my reading list for the year, or in the future, feel free to do so. Please give me your input.

Stay tuned for the list…