"It will be good to worship today."

Monday morning, September 11^th 2017

5.00 am

Hurricane Irma was battering Jacksonville with gale force winds, flooding an already swollen St Johns River with a foot of rain.

Our house was dark. The electricity was out. I walked downstairs. No use trying to sleep. It felt like we were under attack, and I wanted to be at my post to pray and watch.

I lay on the couch in the family room, dozing, listening, praying while repeating Psalm 121, among other warfare verses that I have put to memory. The storm was at its peak, and it felt like I was engaged in a battle of prayer.

The sound of a hurricane is raw unrelenting power and rage: rain pelting against windows, wind wailing through the trees, myriad mysterious and unidentifiable sounds outside.

But laying there, in the midst of that assault of nature, a peace-giving and joy-filled thought “came to me” – it wasn’t my own brain bringing this up because my brain was overwhelmed with sound and battling to recite scriptures. Yet, there it was: “This afternoon, be ready to lead in some music and song. It will be good to worship today.”

Yes, I thought. That is definitely something to look forward to.  Will do.

10.00 am

The worst of the winds and rain had pulled north. But the ruin and the pain of this storm were just becoming evident.

The National Weather Service used the word “epic” to describe the flooding and damage in Jacksonville. I prefer the word “hellish.” According to John 10.10, we have an enemy who comes to “kill, steal, and destroy.” These are Jesus’ words; he knew something about battling the devil, and winning.

“Kill, steal, and destroy” describe what thousands experienced in Jacksonville as well as in south Florida and the Caribbean. But note this: Jesus also said, “I have come to bring you life, and life in abundance…” In the mud and sorrow that Irma left behind, we saw Jesus’ life in some rather surprising and personal ways…

Knowing, and not knowing

Today, September 6, 2017, we know a storm is coming. Hurricane Irma. It’s a “Category 5” storm, and is the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record, according to Hurricane experts.

Thanks to Smartphones, and high speed internet connections, we can watch real time radar images, live video links, and the latest predictions and assessments about Irma. So much information and data, all meant to warn us and help us prepare.

As I write this at home here in Jacksonville, we aren’t sure what this storm will bring to us, or when. But we do know it’s coming, and that it has the potential of bringing wide spread damage, and even death.

Thankfully, we are being warned about this; hopefully, lives will therefore be saved. And, in just a few days, we’ll know what this storm will mean.

We seem to be in a strange vortex of “knowing, and not knowing.”

We know this: a storm is working its way towards us, and that it’s big and dangerous.

But we don’t know this: will this hurt us, or pass us by, or miraculously dissolve? For those of us who experienced Hurricane Matthew last year, here it is again: an all too familiar stress of knowing, but not knowing.

This is a dramatic picture of the “knowing, and not knowing” of our journey as Christ followers. Another way to put it, we live in the “already, and not yet.”