Tonight's blog for May 20, 2013

As I hear more and more of the devastation of the tornado in Oklahoma, my emotions are raw, and my "remember-er" is active. I am thinking about Joplin, about the changes I saw last year as I visited the neighborhoods where Marge and I started ministry as students. We preached in the old OBC campus, and started serving GOD even before we were married. We went to nursing homes for services on Saturday evenings (cheap date and I got to preach!) Marge spent part of her childhood in small towns in Oklahoma and has some precious family members and friends in the area. Tonight, deadly tornados and destroyed lives seem to be winning once again. What can we learn about these "Acts of GOD?"

"GOD, please …"  I started to do what I had been promising not to do, and that is to be your boss, LORD. I know these things aren't being casually observed by YOU. We are the ones with the problem, LORD. We are the ones who allow insurance companies to call these catastrophes "Acts of GOD." They think that will let them off the hook, but I think the opposite is true. Are we the ones who are guilty? Are we the ones who are to blame? Maybe, LORD, you are allowing weather, and national debt, and family disintegration to flourish during these times of faithlessness. Maybe YOU are waiting for us to return to YOU with passion and with true hearts of worship? Anyway, that is how I feel! How can I explain this feeling?

Recently, in reading through the 2 Kings 17:24-26, I was confronted by a teaching that seemed to be too hard to accept. It seems that YOU, LORD allow, even to use lions to kill folks from Israel, who returned from captivity to be killed. They became some of the first group later called “Samaritans.” Why were they being killed? Because they were trying to merge true and false religious activities, learned in captivity. God, we believe that YOU are the ONE TRUE GOD. We worship you through YOUR Son, Jesus. We band together in fellowship with others who also have a similar precious faith. And yet, children die, tornadoes happen, earthquakes devastate, gunmen shoot, and hope seems to be dashed from our lives.  I am sickened by the thought that Oklahoma is facing the same time of testing. Lions or tornados, we know GOD is faithful. Our faith will be tested and our will to serve will be shaken, but we will not be destroyed.

A verse I want to have close to my lips in these times are found in Proverbs 28:1 (The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.)  No matter what happens to us today, our GOD is faithful and HE will be WHO HE is. We can fight HIM, or try to deny HIM, but those are the only alternatives to loving and serving the true GOD.   big marv