When Disaster Feels Imminent

Anxiety attacks us in many and varied ways. It is important to remember that it is a tool of the devil to create despair in the midst of trials. Our pride seeks to always be in control and when it comes to natural disasters nothing shows we are more not in control. Three weeks ago multiple tornadoes reeked disaster on our communities. Here, in Independence County, three people died and many more were injured throughout Northeast Arkansas. That tornado alone traveled 80 miles.

As the next wave of storms come today remember the Words of Jesus in Luke 12:22-31:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

You are of great value to the Lord oh believer. And therefore, seek his kingdom. Remain steadfast in the Word and hear the good news, Christ has come, was crucified, died and rose for you. The inheritance of eternal life is yours. Right now. Be smart and use your God-given common sense. Yet always remember, that even if tragedy were to strike today, we are reminded of what Jesus told us about tragedies in Luke 13, they are given so that we may know to always be ready, and lead a life of repentance.

If tragedy strikes, be prepared to help your neighbor for we have been made a new creation in Holy Baptism. Remember what Paul says in Romans 14, “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

May the Lord preserve and keep safe all those in the storm’s path now and always. Yet if the Lord would so choose today to bring to an end your earthly life, what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer will have been given: Deliver us from evil. May the Lord work through disaster to give you the opportunity to confess the faith and show the love and mercy of God and give all a blessed end.