As many of you know I maintain another blog devoted to Bible prophecy and current events and people have asked me if I think that Hurricane Katrina has prophetic significance. My answer is yes...and no. Let me explain. People are quick to jump to conlcusions and to place blame. We assume that important events are also important from a larger perpspective, it's a big storm, so God must have sent it for a reason. This is a conclusion that helps us make sense of dramatic events and it is a natural human reaction, and although my personal theology holds that God can control things like the weather (God's express will), I don't believe that God micromanages the weather (God's permissive will). I don't beleive that God sent the storm or had any particlular anger towards the good people of New Orleans. Nor do I believe that our part as Christians is to cast blame, but rather to help out and ease the suffering of our fellow human beings as best we can. Sometimes a storm is just a storm. That said, this storm is one of several events that represent a larger trend that does have prophetic significance. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus stated:
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring ... (Luke 21:25)This is part of a time the Bible calls the "end of the age" and not (as some would tell you) the end of the world. Whether you believe that or not, major disasters are a reminder to us, a wake-up call, that life is very fragile and we should take this time to affirm our relationship to God and to each other...before the next storm hits.