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“Floods In Texas, and Urgency In Our Hearts”
Categories: In the News, prayer, salvation
Texas Hill Country residents are facing a scenario that would have been unimaginable to them just a few weeks ago. Flooding has destroyed facilities, ruined beautiful landscapes, and taken over 100 lives to date. The scale of the destruction—and the death toll—have staggered minds of people across the country, with the deepest impact obviously being felt by those who are closest to it. We care about all who’ve been affected, but we have many brothers and sisters in that area, and I think it’s right that we sympathize most acutely with the mourners among them.
As is often the case with natural disasters, for the past several days, people have asked questions like: “Who’s to blame?” “Did we have adequate emergency response systems in place?” “Who’s going to prevent this from happening again?” Questions like this illuminate a truth about humanity: We desperately long for control. We long to prevent all bad things. We long to create a world in which our name is great and our control is absolute—where nothing that we propose to do will be impossible for us. But reality remains: some things are forever out of our control. Years ago, in response to a similar flooding incident, a reporter asked a governor, “What could have been done differently to prevent this?” And the governor wisely responded: “Nothing. This was an act of God. We have no control over things this big.”
Though we learn to make cars safer each generation, lethal accidents still happen. Though we protect our fortunes with insurance and contracts, thieves still break in (or hack in) and steal. Though we learn to control the flow of some rivers, floods still wash away people and things that matter to us. The reality of natural disasters is just that: they are natural, and they are disasters. We simply cannot exhibit enough control to stop all heartbreak, loss, and death. We are fools if we think that we live in a world which is immune to this sort of thing or if we believe that some cosmic power—even God himself—owes us such immunity.
If anything, the Texas flood and its accompanying loss of life reminds us of the oft-repeated idea from one of our hymns: “tomorrow may be too late.” Jesus told several parables to the effect that no one knows the day or hour of either our Lord’s second coming or of our own deaths. If a surprise like a flooding river could come at any moment, shouldn’t we be ready for eternal judgment at every moment? That’s why there is such urgency about believing and obeying God’s Gospel. While we still have the chance to believe in Christ and know with confidence where we will spend eternity, we must obey it.
Let these two lessons settle on our hearts today as we talk to God: 1)That when tragedy strikes, God’s people are the ones who will share in others’ grief. 2) That life and death are in his hands, and he makes us no guarantees about their timing, so we must be ready for his day of judgment.
“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Mt. 25:13)
- Dan Lankford, minister
