Picking up the pieces

While the pictures tell part of the sad story, unless you experience the sights, sounds, smells and hardships personally, it is hard to grasp the magnitude of it all. The families who are going back to their homes will be traumatized by what they see, and the disruption of their lives by the loss of their material possessions, and the lack of basic services will take an emotional toll as well as an economic one.

The damage to the infrastructure and the disruption of businesses, including retail, service and manufacturing, will affect employees, employers and customers for months to come.

The local, state and federal government agencies, along with many charities and relief organizations, will work night and day to bring order back to the streets of the cities, towns and neighborhoods along the devastated Gulf coast. But, it will take time and huge amounts of money and work to accomplish the cleanup and rebuilding of the area.

And yet, even in the midst of tragedy, a building boom will ensue as the repairs are made and services are restored. Workers from all around the country will flock to the area to meet the demand for skilled and unskilled workers needed to make the repairs and to do the rebuilding. America is like that: resilient and undaunted in the face of great difficulty and challenges.

As a nation, what can we learn from these tragic occurrences that have devastated wide areas of the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines this year? Is it just the luck of the draw? Is it simply time and chance, or is there a pattern, a cause from which we should learn important lessons? For those who choose not to believe, it remains a puzzling mystery, but for students of the Bible, the answer is very plain. There is a purpose being worked out on the earth today and while we cannot know all the details, we can have the broad overview of what the Creator is doing.

Anciently, God revealed to the prophets what would happen in their time and in the "latter days." Take a look at Amos 3:6: "If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?" In Isaiah 45:6-7, it says, "… there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things."

Is it really possible that God would use the weather to accomplish His ends? Over and over in Scripture, we see that the answer is a resounding, "Yes!" For example, "A whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury – a violent whirlwind! It will fall violently on the head of the wicked" (Jeremiah 23:19). Again in Ezekiel 7:25-26 the prophet made it very plain: "Destruction comes; they will seek peace, but there shall be none. Disaster will come upon disaster, and rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders."

Now it may not be widely accepted that God accomplishes His will in this way, but a thoughtful reading of the Bible leaves no doubt. You can know more about this phenomenon by reading our very informative, free booklet entitled, Who Controls the Weather? Check it out at www.tomorrowsworld.org.

As folks along the Gulf coast pick up the pieces, you can know what is happening and why.