A daily word from someone who has been reading.

They Stopped in 2017

The anchor verses are Psalm 77:19 · 1 Kings 19:12 (NIV).

North Korea’s last known nuclear test was on September 3, 2017.

The testing stopped. The ground kept moving.

Reporting in Scientific American on a study published in Science this week describes almost 1,400 earthquakes identified in records from 2008 to 2025 around Mount Mantap. Seismic activity increased in frequency and magnitude after the 2017 test.

The researchers’ explanation is that repeated explosions damaged rock and changed the stresses on existing faults, setting further movement in motion. The work draws mainly on seismic instruments in China and South Korea and satellite images.

The authors also warn that earthquakes years after a detonation can make it harder to distinguish the effects of past explosions from natural tectonic activity.

That calls for sustained observation and careful interpretation. The measurements matter. So does knowing what they can tell us.

The mountain does not explain anybody’s suffering. Its movement is not a message about your past.

It does leave me thinking about how much of my attention goes to whatever is shaking hardest.

Psalm 77 begins in distress. The writer wonders whether GOD’s mercy has ended, then turns toward the memory of deliverance.

Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.

Psalm 77:19, NIV.

The footprints were unseen. The people were led through.

That is different from saying there was no evidence of GOD’s work. The psalm remembers deliverance, and it also speaks of thunder, lightning, and an earth that shook. Its final verse names Moses and Aaron, through whom GOD led HIS people.

I hear an invitation here to trust without pretending I can trace every step.

Then Elijah, exhausted and afraid, at another mountain.

In this encounter, the LORD is not in the powerful wind, the earthquake, or the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

1 Kings 19:12, NIV, excerpt.

Elijah hears it, covers his face, and comes to the mouth of the cave. The conversation continues. GOD listens to his complaint and gives him work to do.

This passage does not make quietness a test for GOD’s presence everywhere. It gives us an encounter in which overwhelming force was not where Elijah met HIM.

There is room for that distinction in my own attention.

We need instruments that measure what is happening beneath a mountain. We need to take the readings seriously. Those measurements do not answer every question we bring to a day.

Somebody reading this has had to watch the loudest thing in their life for a long time.

The argument. The diagnosis. The number in the account. The thing that changed yesterday and might change again before evening.

Paying attention to those things is not a failure of faith. They are real, and some of them require action now.

But they need not be the whole of what we notice.

There may also be a person who has stayed. A kindness we nearly passed over. A few words of Scripture we return to before we know what to do next.

I do not want to turn those moments into proof, or insist that every quiet impression is GOD speaking. We can hold them carefully, bring them into prayer, and consider them alongside Scripture and the counsel of people we trust.

We do not have to force an answer in order to make room to listen.

The research leaves work for the people studying the mountain. The people living nearby remain people whose safety matters, not scenery for a reflection.

And the readings leave me with a question about my attention: have I allowed what is loudest to become all that I hear?

The psalm remembers a people led through waters without visible footprints. Elijah’s story makes room for a whisper after the shaking.

I can attend to what needs care today and still make room to listen.

I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.

🙏 To the people who live nearest that mountain, whose lives and safety matter beyond the measurements.

🙏 To the researchers working carefully to distinguish what the evidence shows from what remains uncertain.

🙏 To the one who has had to watch the loudest thing in their life for years and needs room to notice something else.

🙏 To the one trying to listen, without certainty, without an answer they can force.

Grace and Peace.

Sources: Tom Metcalfe, Scientific American, September 17, 2026, reporting on Nuclear tests at Mt. Mantap have reactivated intraplate faults, Science · Psalm 77 (NIV) · 1 Kings 19 (NIV). Scripture quotations: New International Version (NIV). The quotation from 1 Kings 19:12 is the final sentence of the verse.

How this Daily Word comes together

My morning begins with private prayer. That prayer stays private; it is not source material for publication. I then read the day’s news through 1440 and bring together three sets of readings in the Bible app. Two follow areas where I want to spend personal Scripture time. The third is shared with a reading group, where a member usually recommends our next reading plan.

I work with multiple AI systems to explore connections, question interpretations, and develop and review the writing. I bring the reading choices, lived experience, and editorial direction, and I remain responsible for what appears here. AI agreement is not verification; claims still need to be checked against their sources.

For today’s edition, ChatGPT reviewed the supplied draft and card, checked accessible reporting and the NIV passages, shortened the research summary, and clarified the distinction between scientific evidence and devotional interpretation. The research summary relies on the linked reporting; the full Science paper was not accessible during this review.

She Did Not Lift It

Yesterday’s Daily Word.

Read the full September 17 Daily Word →