Just Wondering
My eyes have been glued to CNN, ever since Katrina hit the Southern coast. I listen to my XM radio when I’m in my car, I search for photos on my computer. When they tell us this is the largest natural disaster to hit the United States in it’s history -- your heart goes out for all the victims. You ask yourself: What can I do to help?
Instant video pictures and live telecast is in itself a marvel, but it can also make your blood start to boil!
Why on earth would teenagers and grown men be carrying guns and firing on medical helicopters when devastation surrounds them? It can only make you think of the worse in man kind. Has our morals decayed to this? Looting for food and water is one thing -- but to hijack peoples cars, and loot tennis shoes and other retail items is uncalled for.
My immediate thought was is God trying to tell New Orleans something? Should a catastrophe be read as a punishment from God? Do floods, famine, earthquakes come because God is angry? The Bible’s answer is, “Sometimes, and sometimes not.”
In Genesis, several catastrophes seemed to “just happen”. They were not punishment or a warning, though God used them to advance his plans. These included several famine such as the one that put Joseph to power (chapter 41), a war (chapter 14), a rape (chapter 34).
But a few catastrophes God took full credit for -- like the one a Sodom and Gomorrah.
Have you ever been to New Orleans?
I tell people it’s one of those places you need to visit one time! Ginger and I were there two times. Both times in a convention setting.
In my twenties, I would have called this city “Party Town”. Today, I would call it what it is “Sin City”. You name it, it happens in New Orleans.
God’s patience ran out on Sodom. Could the same b e true for New Orleans? I guess that’s one of the questions we can ask Jesus when He returns.
This week’s bottom line: Jesus did not let his followers think of Sodom simply as “those terrible people.” He warned them that God would be even harder on those who saw Jesus’ miracles, but ignored them (Matthew 11:24) Remember, God’s patience has a limit.
What can you do? How about donating blood, sending cash to the Red Cross or Salvation Army, or inviting a homeless family a place to live until they get back on their feet.
Instant video pictures and live telecast is in itself a marvel, but it can also make your blood start to boil!
Why on earth would teenagers and grown men be carrying guns and firing on medical helicopters when devastation surrounds them? It can only make you think of the worse in man kind. Has our morals decayed to this? Looting for food and water is one thing -- but to hijack peoples cars, and loot tennis shoes and other retail items is uncalled for.
My immediate thought was is God trying to tell New Orleans something? Should a catastrophe be read as a punishment from God? Do floods, famine, earthquakes come because God is angry? The Bible’s answer is, “Sometimes, and sometimes not.”
In Genesis, several catastrophes seemed to “just happen”. They were not punishment or a warning, though God used them to advance his plans. These included several famine such as the one that put Joseph to power (chapter 41), a war (chapter 14), a rape (chapter 34).
But a few catastrophes God took full credit for -- like the one a Sodom and Gomorrah.
Have you ever been to New Orleans?
I tell people it’s one of those places you need to visit one time! Ginger and I were there two times. Both times in a convention setting.
In my twenties, I would have called this city “Party Town”. Today, I would call it what it is “Sin City”. You name it, it happens in New Orleans.
God’s patience ran out on Sodom. Could the same b e true for New Orleans? I guess that’s one of the questions we can ask Jesus when He returns.
This week’s bottom line: Jesus did not let his followers think of Sodom simply as “those terrible people.” He warned them that God would be even harder on those who saw Jesus’ miracles, but ignored them (Matthew 11:24) Remember, God’s patience has a limit.
What can you do? How about donating blood, sending cash to the Red Cross or Salvation Army, or inviting a homeless family a place to live until they get back on their feet.
posted by Echoes at 4:25 PM
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