Thursday, September 6, 2007

Praying the storm away?

So how do you pray when a hurricane is coming? Living in a hurricane prone location, I've been through a bunch of them. Thankfully we've been spared major disaster here. But we also know we could get the next Katrina or Felix.

Do you pray for it to miss you, knowing that if God answers that it will still hit land elsewhere and wreak destruction and loss of life there? I remember 22 years ago when a well known TV evangelist took credit for praying a hurricane out to sea. But what about when it misses you, only to kill and destroy your neighbors? How do you pray for that? I don't think you do.

I'm a believer in the sovereignty of God. I also believe that this earth isn't perfect, and won't be until it is made new. And until that time there are going to be natural disasters. It's a fact of life. Paul wrote that the rain falls on the just and the unjust without discrimination. If that's true, then my hunch is so do storms, tornadoes, earthquakes... Sometimes He wants us to go through the storms.

So back to my question: how do you pray? My only answer is to pray for God's will and grace and protection. The rest I'll leave to Him.

Fortunately we live in the US and get plenty of warning. We also have roads and automobiles. So if the big one is headed here, I'm not hanging around.

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