The Good Thing About Hurricane Katrina

No doubt that Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc along the Gulf Coast. People dead. Homes destroyed. Refugees in misery. Lives disrupted. Economy ruined.

On every channel our tv news displays pictures of mass destruction showing what all authorities say is the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

But overlying the horror another factor looms large.

Thousands and thousands of people reach out to help in every way possible.

Strong young men and women risk their own lives to rescue victims from housetops. Volunteers from every charitable agency mobilize soup kitchens to feed the hungry. Businesses give workers paid time off to help. Government agencies and the U.S. military activate emergency aid plans. Cities all over the country collect cash and goods to aid survivors. People who’ve hardly thought of God in years pray for mercy on the victims. Churches of all sorts open their facilities as shelters. Gray-haired old ladies donate part of their meager pensions to help. Kids drop their allowance in collections jars. Burley men load trucks with groceries and bottled water. Arthritic old guys sit in their recliners watching tv and cheering rescue workers on.

Good hearted people pop out of the woodwork to do what they can.

Awesome!

Yes, there are looters and scam artists and oil companies who take advantage of the situation; such are always with us. But the multitude of people doing whatever good they can far outnumbers the wicked exploiters.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina may be our greatest natural disaster so far; but it has also generated one of the greatest outpouring of kindness, helpfulness and good will the world has ever seen.

Over a hundred years ago Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in London, wrote a daily devotional book; included in his selection for this date are these words:

(A man) must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! …

When a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father's arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! …

Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father!..

Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits.

Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as He built the heavens and the earth, glorify Himself in thy weakness, and magnify his might in the midst of thy distress.