This morning when the radio came on they were talking about the most recent developments in the hurricane story.
It seems that some people in New Orleans are shooting at rescue workers, both in helicopters and otherwise. One MP had a man try to wrestle a rifle out of his hands. People are looting guns from Walmart to shoot other people, not to mention the big-ticket / non-essential items that are being looted, and there are reports that woman are being raped because there is no one to stop it.
This made me very sad (sadder than I already was over the reports of the aftermath), and also angry. Angry at people who would show exactly how fallen america has become.
Then I was thinking about a sermon I heard recently on the radio that Piper gave on Romans 1. He spent two weeks on the versus in Romans 1 on homosexuality, which were very good sermons that reiterated a lot of what I already think about it, then he went back and did a thrid week on the broader principals of those verses. (vs. 21-28) He talked about the symatry in the three paragraphs (as the NIV labels them anyway) and about how the last verse shows that God allows man to be overcome by the depravity of their own minds.
How true that shows through when people turn to shooting at rescue workers, and raping woman because they know they can get away with it.
At small group we watched a video called “transformations”. Liz likes to show it to her groups from time to time. It is about four cities across the world being radically changed by the power of prayer. I can’t help but think that maybe this is evidence that we aren’t the morally upright country we pretend to be, and that more people need to put more energy into praying for individual cities.
We shouldn’t give up hope that a city can be changed by the power of praying people. This shouldn’t be seen as a sign that God abondon this city, but only that he let the people there have an opportunity to express the thoughts of their already depraved minds. I believe that unified prayer of the christians across this country could turn this around without the national guard having to actually go to war against the looting (according to the governor they are decalaring War against those people, and are sending 1500 national guard troops every day to add to the forces there, and this city only had 1400 police officers to begin with).
So, if your the praying sort, pray that God will reign in the minds and hearts of the people that are causing the chaos to continue and grow worse. Pray that the healthy people in that city will not be a cause for a rising death toll. Also, don’t forget to continue praying for places that have other horrible problems, and no government support to help out.
This is a sad week for America. It makes me want to do more, but it is like I don’t know where to start.