Filed under: Uncategorized
Thar be my first hurricane, mitees! Those two silly little tropical storms didn’t count.
Now that I’m a veteran, I’m going to speak on behalf of every hurricane survivor everywhere. “We just pretend it’s tough.”
That’s right… all you silly people living across the rest of the country don’t even realize that these “big huge hurricanes” aren’t really that much of a problem. Flooded house? Pish. Devistated islands? No problem. Vehicles full of water? At least the next time you took I-10 you could use the car-”pool” lane.
The reason we all live in hurricane alley is because we really like getting the extra days off work. Or, for the electricians and plumbers and roofers among us, we really like the overtime!
Besides, it gives us the opportunity to compare our evacuation skills to those of New Orleans. Sadly, this year, they won. Good on’ya Govs.
On a more serious side, there’s a passage of Scripture that holds new meaning to me. I can think of only one sermon I have heard on this passage… but I don’t remember anything about it except that I found coloring O’s, Q’s, and D’s in the bulletin to be much more entertaining. I do, however, distinctly remember that the pastor said it was important.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a story of a certain shrewd businessman who discovered he was suddenly out of favor with his master for wasting his master’s possessions.
Being shrewd, his priorities made a sudden and dramatic shift. Rather than focus on the efforts of making money for his master (whether he was good at this or not Jesus did not say), he chose instead to make friends (at his master’s personal expense, of course). This way, when the master tossed him out, he suddenly had a whole host of friends who were more than happy to pay his unemployment benefits (18 months or whenever he receives employment with compensation of at least 90% of his previous employment, whichever is shorter).
This story of Jesus’ strikes me in a new light.
Here we sit, chalk full of tons of goodies and wealth. We have an abundance of food, clothing, and even a few cookies Jadon hasn’t discovered yet. while we walked away from Ike with everything, there are thousands upon thousands who lost it all. I’m reminded of an old lady who guilted her son into staying with her on Galveston Island. How fortunate for her he “happened” to have life jackets with him. She lost everything she owned in this whole world, nearly losing her own life and her son’s.
Basicly, God called back from her everything He had given her. As Christians we know that everything we have is God-given and God-owned. At any time, God may require everything He has given us to be forfeited.
This isn’t because God is being mean to us or even necessarying targeting us for “a lesson on living without”. It is simply because the blessings and sorrows rain on both the evil and the good.
Looking at this story of Jesus’, we’re all managers of God’s possessions. Not once in his story does Jesus refer to something the manager owned. Instead, he said that the manager owned nothing.
In time, God will call each of us to give an account of them. The question is, have we been using God’s possessions to the enrichment of others? Or have we horded them to ourselves? While this moral seems so intuitively obvious, I would question each of our actions in carrying it out.
I live in Houston. Several of our cities have been destroyed — our neighbors. These neighbors who last week had homes, tables, computers, sofas, and beds are now destitute. Some of them have fewer remaining possessions than the beggers under the I-10 overpasses.
Now what will the people of God do with their wealth?
I might point out that Jesus concludes his story with his ever-quoted condemnation, “You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
