John, Ike, Jeremiah, and Zeke

September 15th, 2008 Tim Posted in SevenLakes Info |

Those are the new “Fab Four” for me!  Here’s my Ike story.

If you live in the Katy/Houston area, you know what just happened.  We were visited by a big ‘ol honkin’ Texas-sized hurricane that’s made most of us find out how much we love air-conditioning, water from the tap, and hopefully each other.  We’ve also learned how arbitrary life can be.  My family escaped Ike with a slightly wobbly fence, a couple of bushes that lean, and a potted plant that tipped over.  A friend who lives just two miles away is living in only half of his house because the rest was flooded by a leaky roof.  Others a few miles away have no home. 

But I really wanted to write about what happened at my house on Saturday morning when the hurricane came.  At about one o’clock, my wife and son were asleep in our master closet, and my daughter was upstairs in her room.  I think the prospect of sleeping in a large closet (for clothes) but small (for sleeping, especially with one’s little brother) was just too weird for her.  I was determined to stay up all night and watch over them.  The winds were starting to pick up, and the electricity had been out for about two hours, and I found my Bible in the dark and started reading (with a reading light!).  I’m doing the Life Journal a lot of us at CrossPoint use to help me read through the Bible in a year.  I had gotten a few days behind, so I figured I could get caught up.

I think this is proof that God has a sense of humor, because my assigneed readings were from Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Revelation.    If you’ve never read those books, Lamentations is just what it sounds like.  It was written by the prophet Jermemiah, and it’s a series of laments about the sinful state of man.  Ezekiel is a very intense book with tons of wild images and God’s pronouncements against sin.  Revelations, written by Jesus’ disciple John, is about the sure return of Jesus.

Then there’s Ike.  Sitting in my living room, then my dining room because Ike was rattling the windows in my living so loud I started to get nervous, I had another reminder that this life really isn’t about me.  But that reminder, that realization, was pressed even deeper into what makes me who I am, and it helped get me through the night.

We live in a world created by a very big God.  He’s a God who absolutely hates sin and punishes it with the shedding of blood.  He’s gracious enough to take the punishment upon Himself in the flesh that was beaten and whipped and put on a cross, on my cross, and yours.  He’s also a God who will certainly return, and all the pain, cancer, heartache, and hurricanes will be forgotten.  In the face of a hurricane, God’s love and mercy and justice rang through the wind and the rain and rattling windows.  It’s about Him, and even though it isn’t always clear how it will work out, God is in control. 

We can praise Him through the storm.  Let’s remember to praise Him after the storm, too. 

What are you hurricane Ike stories?  Please, respond!!