4 September 2005

Abraham, when he was called to go out, checked his schedule.  He deliberated using +’s and –‘s.  He made a plan.  Upon leaving, he knew where he was going, what he was going to do and where he was going to stay.

Not quite.

The real story reads:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out...  And he went out, not knowing where he was going ...living in tents...   Hb 11 v8.

How does this work? How does one know where to go if one does not know where one is going? How does one know when one reaches that which one does not know? And how does one know what one is to do when that which is not known is reached? 

It was State Fair time in Minnesota.

The tv stations were broadcasting live from the fair.  The 6:00 “News” was filled with images of people waving pronto pups with silly grins hoping the camera would notice and they would “make” the news.   

The 6:00 news followed the 5:30 national news which seemed, in contrast, to be from another planet.  It was not.  It was happening just down the river: Hurricane Katrina.  People were dying – over 1,800 and counting.

It was surreal.

Then one evening, the 5:30 news showed an elderly black man struggling to get out of a rescue boat. As he did, he stopped, and looking straight into the camera asked, “Where is everyone?”

Busy.

Waving pronto pups.

I could no longer sit on the couch and watch. I threw some things in the car and took off. 

As I drove, Abraham’s story kept coming to mind. I wondered about the tent. God said, “I’ve got the tent.”  

At some point, my thoughts turned to Christ’s “Unto Me” words. The more I thought on His words, the more alive they became. And the more clear it became what I was to do. 

Near St Louis I got a call from a woman I had never met. She desired to help. Neither of us knew what that meant.

God was networking. 

A cousin looked for where I should go. Following his directions, I found myself at the federal government’s FEMA and Homeland  Security headquarters. As I pulled up to the guard station a thousand things were whirling through my mind such as, “What in the world am I doing here?”

The guard asked some questions, called in, and waved me through. I was met at the main building, escorted in and after some discussion was offered a place to spend the night. They brought me outside and showed me my bed.

It was in a tent.

Although I had been driving for 20 hours and been up for more, I couldn’t sleep.  God was so alive. 

It was 3:00 AM.  ll was dark – the power was out, except for some portable lights powered by a noisy generator on the street outside my tent. I found a piece of not-quite-clean cardboard and laid it on the street’s curb. There, in the solitude of the generators, under the too-white light they provided, with laptop on lap, I wrote: 

N'Orleans

I was hungry,

And you waited for the government

To give Me something to eat;

I was thirsty,

And you wrote a brilliant editorial

Complaining that I had nothing to drink;

A stranger,

And you took Me to a stadium

To live like cattle;

Naked,

And you watched while the TV crews

Filmed Me for their "Special";

I was sick,

And you left Me on the streets

Of N'Orleans to die;

I was in prison,

In My roof;

And you took a picture of my roof,

And showed it on your benefit "for the victims",

You boasted about the millions you collected

As you watched your sales soar.

...And I waited.

 You do know, don't you?

You're not doing this to N'Orleans;

You're doing this to Me.

JC