Posts tagged ‘South Carolina’
In and After the Storm
Credit: Wikipedia
The Bible has a lot of stories of storms. When God appears to Moses on Mount Sinai’s summit to give him the Ten Commandments, the mountaintop is covered in “darkness, gloom, and storm” (Hebrews 12:18). When Job endures great suffering, he complains: “God would crush me with a storm” (Job 9:17). When God speaks to Job after his trials, it says, “The LORD spoke to Job out of the storm” (Job 38:1). When God calls Jonah to preach to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, but the prophet instead hops a ship heading the opposite direction, the Lord sends “a great wind on the sea, and a violent storm” (Jonah 1:4). When Jesus is sailing with His disciples across the Sea of Galilee one day, out of nowhere comes “a furious storm” (Matthew 8:24). The Bible has a lot of stories of storms.
These days, our headlines have been plastered with stories of a storm. The pictures that have come out of the Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Dorian are horrible. Halves of islands are underwater. Debris fields stretch for miles. And the death toll has yet to be fully counted. And, of course, Dorian’s destruction did not end with these islands. The storm carved a path up our nation’s eastern seaboard, dumping rain, flooding communities, and disrupting and endangering countless lives.
Whenever we face a storm like this, a common question arises: Where is God? Though there is no complete answer to this question, here are a couple of thoughts Scripture invites us to consider.
First, God is in the storm. When God speaks to Job after all his trials, he speaks to him “out of the storm” (Job 38:1). This means that in all of Job’s trials, God was right there, even though Job did not know it. When Jesus’ disciples sail across the Sea of Galilee, Jesus does not avoid the storm they sail into, but is there with them in the storm. And when Jesus dies on a cross, He does so in the midst of storm clouds so dark that they black out the sun: “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45). God, then, does not avoid our storms even if He does not still every storm. He is with us in the storms.
Second, God is after the storm. When the prophet Elijah, at God’s behest, goes to meet with God on a mountain, instead of finding God, he experiences a storm:
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12)
Elijah goes to meet with God. But he finds only hurricane force winds, an earthquake, and fiery lighting. It seems like God is nowhere to be found in these storms. But then:
After the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:12-13)
It turns out that God was there for Elijah after the storms.
Dorian’s destructive path has now been cut. The damage has been done. People’s lives and livelihoods have been uprooted. But God did not run from this storm. He was in the storm with those who suffered from it. But, perhaps even more importantly, now, He is still standing tall after the storm with those who have come out of the storm. The question is: as God’s people, will we also be there for those who need us after the storm? There are multiple ways to help the victims of Dorian. I pray that you will. After all, God is there after the storm. So, we should be, too.
The Psalmist famously writes:
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. (Psalm 46:1-4)
The Psalmist reminds us that God is in the storm. He is “an ever-present help in trouble.” But he also reminds us that God is after the storm. For He has prepared for us and now dwells in a celestial city, not with waters that are destructive like a storm surge, but with waters that bubble and babble with gladness. In other words, God is not only in the storm, nor is He even only after the storm, He is there even after this life, waiting to welcome those who have lost their lives – including those believers who have lost their lives in storms like Dorian – into His eternal city. A storm may end this life – but it cannot drown out eternal life.
Hurricane Florence Batters the Carolinas
Credit: NASA Johnson
The remains of Hurricane Florence continue to pummel the East Coast. The devastation already done by the monster storm is startling. The death toll seems to rise nearly by the hour. Nearly one million are without power. And by midday Saturday, North Carolina received over 30 inches of rain from the storm, shattering the previous rainfall record of 24.06 inches, set during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
As the storm sluggishly dissipates and the recovery begins, we are once again left grappling with the chaos that is endemic to a creation disordered by sin. The pictures pouring in of wind-battered beaches, tree-split homes, flood-ravaged communities, and terrified-looking residents speak for themselves. The cleanup and rebuilding process will most certainly be long and arduous. This summer, I vacationed in Port Aransas, Texas with my family, the spot where Hurricane Harvey came ashore last summer. The condo complex at which I stayed still had whole buildings that were missing their roofs. The amount of work yet to be done in that family-friendly beach town is simply more than contractors can complete in a timely manner. I have a feeling the coastal towns of the Carolinas will be enduring much the same experience.
When Jesus’ disciples find themselves in the throes of a massive storm of the Sea of Galilee, they come face-to-face with the chaos – and the danger – of a disordered creation. As they are battered by the wind and the waves, they cry out to Jesus, who is in the storm with them, “Lord, save us” (Matthew 8:25)! And He does. He “rebukes the winds and the waves, and it is completely calm” (Matthew 8:26).
The disciples’ simple and desperate prayer is still a plea worth making, even as Florence passes. The Lord can still help, even after the wind and the waves have been stilled and the floods have receded. He can give us empathy for the injured and a resolve to rebuild. And so, we pray that God would provide us with all that we need during a time that is fraught with exhaustion and heartbreak.
J.I. Packer, in his book on prayer, quipped that we should ask God “what we ourselves might need to do to implement answers to our prayers.” As the Carolinas begin the process of rebuilding, this is certainly a question worth asking. We can make donations to the victims. We can help our loved ones – and, perhaps, even strangers – rebuild. And we can refuse to forget that, long after the headlines of the hurricane fade, the need will continue to be real.
For all the damage that Florence has done, we must never forget that Jesus was in the storm, lovingly caring for all those who suffered – and continue to suffer – from the storm. Jesus does not always stop storms, but neither does He shirk them. He stands in them with us. And He’s a good guy to have when you’re in the wind and the waves.
On Confederate Flags and Moral Clarity
On the heels of a terrible tragedy has come a robust debate. When 21-year-old Dylann Roof walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston for a Wednesday evening Bible study, 50 minutes later, he had shot eight people dead with a ninth victim who died later at the hospital. His stated reason for the rampage was horrifyingly racist. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country,” he said to the African-American churchgoers, “and you have to go.”
As our nation has been processing its grief, it’s also been engaging in a debate over an old symbol connected to racism and slavery: the Confederate flag – specifically, the one that flies at the South Carolina State Capitol. In one way, I am still trying to wrap my head around how this debate was sparked by this tragedy. Although I would heartily agree that racism and slavery, in all their forms, are egregious, it seems that a debate over how to keep a firearm out of the hands of a man like Roof would be much more directly related to the tragedy at hand. In one way, I can’t help but wonder if we needed to find something over which to be morally outraged as a catharsis for our deep shock and grief. My psychologizing notwithstanding, this is still an interesting debate.
Sadly, as with so many of our debates, this one has quickly degenerated into cheap attacks. Take, for instance, this tweet from Vox’s David Roberts: “The American South has always been the most barbaric, backward region in any developed democracy. Can we admit that now?” Somehow, Roberts managed to connect a racist lunatic with a gun and a Civil War era symbol to a whole region of our country and its prevailing cultural sensibilities. Thankfully, CNN ran a much more nuanced piece on the history of the Confederate flag, which, it turns out, is not the Confederate flag at all, but the battle flag of General Robert E. Lee’s army unit. David Brooks of The New York Times provided us with a thoughtful biographical analysis of General Lee – both the good and the ugly.
I, for one, though I certainly see and would uphold the value in preserving the history of the Confederate flag, am not quite sure why this particular flag needs to fly outside the South Carolina State Capitol, especially when it is a reminder of terrible pain and division to so many. Preserving history is more the job of museums than it is of flagpoles outside capitol buildings.
But there is more here than just a debate over a flag. For out of this debate, a broader trend has once again emerged that deeply troubles me. Our cultural conversations have become so anemic and, in many instances, so vile that they are often of little to no value. Politically, sociologically, and morally, we have divided ourselves into traditional and progressive camps, loathe to admit that there is any worth, insight, or righteousness on the side to which we are opposed.
I happen to come from the generally progressive Pacific Northwest while finding myself much more at ease now living in the generally traditional state of Texas. This does not mean, however, that progressivism has nothing to teach me. I think of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s speech at the University of Kansas in 1968:
Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year. But that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
Senator Kennedy may have been progressive, but it is hard to find sharper moral clarity than his. Traditionalists need to listen. Likewise, in what may come as a surprise to David Roberts, traditional culture – even when it’s from the South – has a lot that is good and outright charming. Chivalry, Southern manners, and a biblically informed, even if imperfectly so, moral compass are important to the thriving and future of any civilized society. Progressivism needs to take note.
As Christians, no matter what our general cultural sensibilities may be, we will always find ourselves as strangers in the midst of raging culture wars. After all, our first loyalty is not to the sensibilities or hobbyhorses of any particular culture, but to the truth of the Word of God. And God’s Word has a funny way of challenging every culture and every sinner.
Let’s remember that when we fight over flags – or over anything else, for that matter.
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