The Efficacy of Prayer

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Some have argued that Katrina is a visitation of the judgment of God. I'm not ready to go there for a number of reasons--not because it can't be, and not because God might not do something like that, but because it would seem to me that a visitation might have been due Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot and any number of other tyrants (Kim il Jong, etc.) before it was due New Orleans. Yes, much bad goes on in New Orleans--I hardly think it compare with death camps and genocide, and I think God, if He were visiting wrath would probably weigh that in the scales. But the reality is that I must admit I do not know the mind of God and He may have something else behind this judgment if it is.

But the main point of this is that I wonder if those who were so quick to reach this conclusion would equally quickly embrace the possibility of the good that prayer can do. Can we, through concerted effort "pray away a hurricane?"

So far our lovely little friend Hurricane OPHELIA has wandered around and around the Atlantic--the shifting course making prediction of anything nearly impossible. First Jacksonville, then Savanah/Charleston, now the outer banks were the target. But look how it skirt the outer banks? Would our prayers be efficacious in moving it more? And how would we know?

Regardless of whether or not we would know, perhaps we should make a concerted effort to pray that this Hurricane miss landfall entirely. Katrina has visited enough destruction for a pretty good chastisement for some time to come. It would be better that no one else suffer because of the weather. Admittedly the storm is relatively weak in terms of hurricanes--but so was Katrina when 7-10 people died in the Miami area.

So, let us all pray together for this storm to follow some as yet untracked course away from land. Surely God can hurry the front along and push Ophelia away from all the possible harm she may do. And if not, then, "thy will, not mine, be done."

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on September 11, 2005 4:25 PM.

A Trip to Boston was the previous entry in this blog.

The Wojtyla-Ratzinger Continuum is the next entry in this blog.

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