The news out of Texas is both heartbreaking and something that we in western North Carolina can relate to all too well after Hurricane Helene in September 2024. In Texas, in the early morning hours of July 4, rapidly rising floodwaters left dozens dead, including many precious kids from a Christian summer camp. One of the co-owners of the camp lost his life as well while trying to rescue many of those kids.
It should go without saying that those dear families, and all of Texas, are going to need both our prayers and our support.
Earth itself is hurting; it has been for thousands of years now. Here is how Paul described it in Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Since the moment man fell in the garden, Earth has been “off.” In theological terms, it is under a curse (Genesis 3:17-18). Sin was allowed entrance through us, judgment followed and a once-perfect world was broken and has been deteriorating with each passing year. There will come a day when all of creation is restored, a day when Christ himself sits on the throne in Jerusalem for a thousand years and the world gets to experience what an unbroken world can be like.
But what are we to do until then?
Obviously, and in contradistinction to those who love to mock it, we need to pray. Prayer both moves the heart and hand of God on behalf of others and keeps us mindful of others rather than always focusing on ourselves. I have experienced multiple times of being awakened in the middle of the night, burdened for someone and not even knowing why, praying for them and then the next day finding out that they were going through some danger or hardship at the exact moment that God woke me to pray. And go ahead and block the inevitable God and faith haters who love to use tragedies as a way to mock both; they do not deserve an audience for their ill-timed spewings.