Posted by H. Brandon Fry on September 03rd 2005 to
Faith
I have been unable to quite sort out my emotions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fall of New Orleans. The overarching sense is one of gloom. I’m sickened and saddened both by the basest human behavior on display and the calamity that precipitated it, though it could never justify it. I’m overwhelmed at the magnitude of the destruction and the hopelessness of an unfathomable task of saving the survivors from the disaster as well as from themselves, not to mention finding places for them all to go in the present, and homes and jobs for them for the long term.
Along with concern for the survivors and those who seek to aid them is anger and disgust toward those politicians and media outlets who wasted no time in seeking to use this tragedy as a weapon against President Bush and his administration. Everything from the intensity of the storm to the incidental fact that the majority of its victims are black has been cited as evidence of W’s purported dogmatic anti-scientism, his callous indifference toward minorities, or worse. One way or another, we are less than subtly assured, George W. Bush is to blame.
The thought that is most on my mind, however, as I watch from the seeming safety of the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in upstate South Carolina, is how tenuous a thing what I consider “normal life” truly is. Sitting here in my den, a college football game on the tube, typing on my laptop connected wirelessly to my broadband internet connection, things seem stable, safe, and secure. Even here, however, relatively removed from the tumultuous events in the Gulf, gas stations were crowded with cars a few days ago trying to make sure we weren’t the ones who might be caught with fuel gauges on empty if the supply should run out entirely.
I don’t know what it would take to accomplish this, but what if the supply actually was cut off for an extended period? How ugly would things start to get around here if no one could put fuel in their tank, keeping most from being able to get to work? And, of course, many jobs would be suspended anyway because there’d be no way to receive materials for production or to ship finished product. How long would it take for looting to begin and violence to break out? Not too long, I’d wager.
And that’s just one scenario. Point is that in a mere heartbeat everything that we consider to be normal life can be ripped away and we could find ourselves fearing for our safety and for our loved ones.
This prompts in me a long overdue evaluation of the ephemeral things that I continually chase after for comfort and security. Things seem okay if I can follow my little routines and indulge in my vain entertainments and distractions. But all the while a great restlessness grows in me because I neglect the only things that are absolutely, unwaveringly certain: God and His word.
The wise person learns this and patterns his life around it. Too many of us, however, have to learn through bitterness and strife. Lets try to let at least this much good come from the disaster that has befallen others; that we take to heart the lesson that absolutely nothing can be counted on in life save the faithfulness and constancy of God.
Psalm 62:5-9 (New International Version)
5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God [a] ;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
Selah
9 Lowborn men are but a breath,
the highborn are but a lie;
if weighed on a balance, they are nothing;
together they are only a breath.
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