Sunday morning, about 8:30 a.m. CST, Hurricane Ike struck the St. Louis region of the country. The media was quick to show the downed power lines, broken trees and flood waters, all part and parcel of such a powerful storm. Yet, what the media missed was just beyond the lens of their cameras in the rural areas home to 'not enough people to make it worth sending a film team'. Had they overlooked the flattened fields of corn, beans and milo, the flooded fields of rice too deep in the water to be recovered, and hay too tattered to be of value. The unblinking eye of the camera focused on the property loss with which the greatest number of people could identify and empathize, sharpening the images of hunters caught in trees by waters overtopping levees while blind to the farmer just down the road on bended knee weeping for what never will be harvested . . . and never will be eaten by man, nor beast.
One of folks who walked through the door this morning lamented, "They [the farmers] just didn't deserve this, especially this year after such a rough Spring." And, in my opinion, they are right, but it got me to thinking: What is it that they, or we, really deserve? And, if we received what we deserved, what would the unblinking eye of the camera record of the outcome? Would anybody be interested? Or, would it fit in that broadest of categories of, 'No-one even noticed'?
What if we received what we deserved? What if you received what you deserved?
We are told in the Bible that the Father sends, "rain on the just and unjust alike." (Mt. 5:45b) Can the winds and waters of a hurricane be far removed from this teaching? Or the grace offered at the door of an empty tomb?
It just got me to thinking . . . and praying for those caught in disasters not of their making. I pray, not that we get what we deserve, but that we live, regardless of our situation, deserving of God's most abundant grace in spite of what we deserve.
It is just something to ponder.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
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