The Unchanging Word Beneath the Shaking Ground

In 1989, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco during the World Series. Buildings pancaked, highways collapsed, and the ground itself became unreliable. Yet engineers later discovered that structures anchored to bedrock — not soil — survived with remarkably little damage. The difference was not the intensity of the shaking but the foundation beneath.

Romans 5:3-5 presents a divinely inspired sequence that no human philosophy could manufacture: tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Notice that Paul, writing under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, does not say suffering might produce these things. The text declares it as settled reality. This is not motivational advice — it is inerrant, God-breathed truth, as certain as the character of the One who spoke it into existence.

Wayne Grudem reminds us that because Scripture is wholly truthful in all it affirms, we can stake our lives on promises like these even when our circumstances scream otherwise. The suffering believer does not hope because feelings improve or circumstances shift. We hope because the verbally inspired Word of God tells us that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

When the ground shakes beneath you, the question is not whether the shaking is real. It is whether your foundation is. Anchor yourself not to experience but to the infallible, sufficient Word — and you will find it holds.