Seeing God in the Gulf of Mexico
It has now been 40+ days and the massive oil well in The Gulf of Mexico continues gushing unimaginable amounts of crude into the ocean. After decades of off-shore drilling, the practice seemed to have become rather routine however, we were wrong. In life we can expect the unexpected. There have been other massive oil spills in history including a major one in June, 1979 (known as the Ixtoc in the Gulf of Mexico) and another in March 1989 in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground. When things like this occur mankind is once again brought face-to-face with a reality. That reality is just how helpless he really is!
Engineers have been working feverishly to try and stop this massive oil spill. Robots have been employed, various and crude methods of jamming rock and other material into the hole have failed. Think of all the things mankind has come to be able to do, but is unable to stop an oil leak! There is strange irony somewhere!
I wonder what God is thinking as he watches all of this unfold? As oil, made up of plant and animal materials from before the flood, flows from the earth, many of the same scientists still claim to not even believe in the God who caused the flood which ultimately produced the oil! In Psalm 2 and verse 4, the Psalmist writes, “He who sits in the Heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.” Also the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church centuries later, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen . . .” (1 Cor. 1:27-28a) In case our world has forgotten it; God is still in charge and he often uses the most unlikely of things to remind us of that!
Whether it is a massive oil spill or the latest round of tornados to hit the Midwest, a massive ice storm on the East Coast, a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, an earthquake in Haiti, or a hurricane hitting New Orleans, God is still very much in control! Why do so many live as though there were not even a God in the Heavens yet turn around and blame Him for any and all of these disasters? Is God nothing more than a scapegoat; an object for placing of blame? The God of the Bible is much, much more.
In this latest incident people are scrambling to find the answer as to how to stop the bleeding of oil, but hardly giving a thought to the bleeding of there own souls. Somehow they believe that relief or happiness is just around the corner. The optimists of this world are proclaiming the power of a positive attitude, but in reality it is only Christians who have any reason whatsoever to truly be happy. Statistics show that the majority of people have serious worries about money, whereas less than ten percent have serious worries about Hell. Sadly, the money they chase after so vigorously is as temporal as today’s headlines but Hell, on the other hand, is just as eternal as Heaven itself! Somehow our affections and sense of priority has become distorted and twisted. Every now and then it is probably helpful to have an occurrence beyond man’s control to just simply keep us grounded. Although painful, these can be helpful.
Christians need not wonder or worry. God is in control of all situations and nothing happens apart from His allowing it to happen. Everything does happen for a reason. As believers, something as strange as man’s inability to cap an oil well should be a reminder that we serve a big God!
In Christ,
Pastor Allen Raynor