Monday, October 29, 2012

I wonder


I remember on September 11th, 2001, when the planes slammed into the Towers and the Pentagon.

I wondered.

Yes, it was the deliberate choice of sinful men to do an evil deed, and an act of war. But I wondered if there was something more to it. I wondered if it was, perhaps, a warning shot across the bow of our culture, reminding us that the military might in which we put so much trust wasn't as impenetrable as we thought it was. Warning us that it would be prudent to change our course while we still had time.

Of course, I had no way of knowing. But I wondered.

I remember in August of 2003, when a mishap somewhere in a neighboring state deprived a large portion of the country, including our state, of electricity for three days. Yes, it was human error, the failure of an over-stressed and under-maintained electrical grid. But at the time I wondered again if there might not be more to it. I wondered if it was another warning shot across our bow, warning us that the glitzy technology upon which we rely so much was much more fragile than we liked to think it was.

Again, no way of knowing. But I still wondered.

Now the east coast is being smashed by what is being universally called the most brutal storm ever to come ashore. As I write, the storm has yet to make landfall, yet estimates of damage are already in the tens of billions, with the potential for tremendous loss of life. Major population centers like Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, and Baltimore are going to be severely hit.

Again, I'm wondering. Sure, the storm is a result of impersonal forces like wind and gravity. But in Scripture, we see the Lord using storms (and other natural events like droughts) to work His ways. And here we are facing one of the most critical elections in my lifetime, with the incumbent clearly and consistently aligning himself up against God's law. Over the past four years he has proven that he will do anything – including shut down the Federal government – to keep pouring as much blood of innocent children as possible down Moloch's throat. He has publicly aligned himself with forces seeking to destroy God's definition of marriage and family. He is seeking to strip Christians of the rights to live out their religion in their public life by forcing them to fund sinful activity. He has lied so often, and so casually, that you'd swear it was his native language. In just four years he – and those who write his script – have done so much damage to this country that I wonder if we'll ever recover.

So again, I wonder. I have no way of knowing, but I wonder if this stupendous natural calamity occurring one week before the decisive election might not be another warning shot across our bow. One more huge, dramatic attempt to get our attention, to warn us to change our course, before we sail into catastrophe.

God alone knows that, and He hasn't told me anything yet.

But I still wonder.

No comments: