God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge! [Psalm 46:1-3 (NLT)]
The damage done by Hurricane Harvey seemed unbelievable until Irma hammered the entire state of Florida. Fortunately, our Florida home was prepared and we were safely situated in the Midwest during Irma’s tirade. Would that all the storms of life announced themselves a week in advance to give us time to put up storm shutters and evacuate to safety.
Unfortunately, most of life’s storms are more like tornadoes and hit with little or no warning. Yesterday, sixteen years after 9/11, we were again reminded how unpredictable and precarious life can be. Plywood, sand bags, flashlights, batteries, generators, and stores of fuel, water, and canned goods are of no use when a plane crashes into a building, a spouse has a disabling stroke, a car careens into a crowd, or a stray bullet hits. Addiction, Alzheimer’s, job loss, divorce, cancer, mental illness or a drunken driver don’t warn us before wreaking havoc with our lives. We cannot escape from life’s tempests and trials and they can be far more destructive than any hurricane with its accompanying storm surge.
Someone asked if I had a digital record of our property and another if I was worried about losing anything. Possessions were the least of my concerns; “It’s just stuff!” was my response. We did our best to protect our Florida home and belongings but they are things. I can’t take them with me at the end so, if I lose them now, what difference does it really make? Perhaps I’m being cavalier; it’s our second home so, even if everything is destroyed, I still have a place to rest my head. Nevertheless, although most of those affected have only one home, the same holds true for us all; it really is just stuff. Eventually, power will be restored and homes and businesses will be rebuilt; life goes on.
The question about what I didn’t want to lose got me wondering about my answer—if not house and possessions, to what am I attached? The answer is my faith and relationships, neither of which can be insured or replaced. In the last few days I’ve heard from friends far and near, checking on us and offering their help. These are people who already have more than enough on their plates and yet they offered us both moral support and helping hands. I would mourn losing relationships like those far more than anything in my houses. As for my faith, I’d like to think it will take more than a hurricane or even a terrorist attack to topple it.
Our Florida home was built to withstand a hurricane and should have survived the storm’s onslaught; I don’t yet know. The more important question is whether my faith and relationships can survive the sort of pounding that Irma inflicted on Florida. Are they strong enough to survive gale force winds? Rather than taking pictures of stuff, shuttering the windows or putting furniture up on blocks, what am I doing to reinforce and protect both my faith and relationships to make sure they survive whatever storms come my way?
Heavenly Father, thank you for keeping us strong during life’s storms. Let your written word and the Spirit’s voice bolster us when we start to waver in the wind. Thank you for the gift of friends and family—the people who love and strengthen us so we can survive the squalls, challenges, and losses of our troubled world. Help us be the kind of friends who can be counted on to encourage, reinforce and sustain those around us.
The eagle is mentioned more than any other bird of prey in the Bible. References are made to its swiftness of flight, ability to soar high in the air, excellent vision, the way it sets its nest in high places, and the strength of its wings. The above two verses about eagles, however, are more figurative than literal and have no scientific basis. Although mother eagles do hover over their young, they cannot carry them. A bald eagle’s lifting power is only about a third of its weight. An eaglet ready to fly is as heavy as its parents. If Mrs. Eagle tried to carry junior, they’d both fall! The second verse about being renewed like an eagle is probably connected to an ancient belief that every ten years the eagle disappeared into the sun, dove down into the sea with the setting sun, and emerged young again. There’s a similar urban myth that at 30 years of age, the eagle flies to a high mountain top and makes the difficult decision between death or the painful plucking out of all of its feathers and the destruction of its beak and talons. After waiting several months for everything to grow back again, it will be transformed and the refreshed bird will be able to live another 30 years. Not so; like the rest of us, when it’s time to grow old and die, the eagle has no choice. Like other birds, however, when the eagle molts, old worn feathers will drop and new ones will replace them.
Ezekiel proclaimed God’s message to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. As the Lord’s prophet, he was commissioned to deliver words of both judgment and hope. Some of the exiles recognized him as a prophet but more did not. Although they found Ezekiel’s message entertaining, they had no intention of putting his words into practice. There’s a lesson here for today’s churches: pews filled with people there only for the music, amusement, food, or activities mean nothing if God’s word is not planted in people’s hearts.
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. [1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NLT)]
In speaking about prayer recently, our pastor referred to the 2009 church-wide assembly of our denomination. Knowing that the agenda included some divisive topics, the Presiding Bishop asked the delegates to spend the 50 days leading up to the convention devoted to both prayer and the study of Scripture. Once the Assembly convened, there was heated discussion among the delegates about the writing of a statement on human sexuality. The debate about this controversial subject was unique because the Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson, halted the proceedings every twenty minutes to lead the assembly in prayer. Delegates on opposing sides, who had been vehemently arguing minutes earlier, often would lay hands on one another and pray for each other during these breaks. Praying for unity in spite of their disagreements, the delegates showed respect and love for one another. Although the final statement passed by only one vote and there is still disagreement within the church about it, without those pauses for prayer, that debate could have caused far more damage to the church than did the tornado that accompanied the assembly.
I’m in the midst of reading a series of seven children’s fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. Some of them, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I read as a girl but others are new to me. The world of Narnia is a world to which one wants to return again and again and I’m enjoying my visit ever so much. C.S. Lewis, however, was much more than a writer of fantasy, non-fiction and poetry; he was a well-known lecturer, a brilliant scholar and a renowned Christian apologist.
Devotions of the Heart 