Mandatory Evacuations...

Three years ago, Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita, literally brought about death and destruction to such a huge part of the Gulf Coast Region. New Orleans, will never, ever be the same city it was prior the what the locals still call, ‘The Storm’. Between the flood waters, the storm surges, and the breaks in the levies, the city of New Orleans was left with a front row seat to one of the greatest natural disasters in history.

Now, three years later, another hurricane takes dead aim at the exact location on the coast that Katrina & Rita ravaged. But, this time, between the local, state and federal officials, they realized the potential of what Hurricane Gustov could do. So in order to be more prepared, a Mandatory Evacuation was issued for New Orleans and surrounding parishes. Amazingly, almost 1.9 million heeded the order, and left the region. It was almost a 100% evacuation.

Why? Why this time, and not three years ago.

What would make this massive amount of people leave their homes and belongings behind with just a simple order?

It’s simple, lessons were learned with the earlier hurricanes, and the people who live in those regions didn’t want to relive it again.

Wise thinking.

So here is the deep question of the day: If we can learn from such things as hurricanes, why can’t we learn from day-to-day problems that consistently haunt our lives?

Let’s look at James 4:3-10.

In this passage, James makes it perfectly clear that ‘whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.’ (verse 4) We fall into the traps that the world set for us, yet, we don’t learn from our mistakes.

James give us a ‘how to’ process to learn from our daily mistakes and to live a closer walk with Christ.

In verses 7-10, James lays out 10 things, imperatives, that we must do in order to not continually fall into the trap that the world sets.

Submission to God
Resistance of the devil
Drawing near to God
Cleansing of the hands
Purifying the heart
Lamentation
Mourning
Weeping
Turning
Humbling

Let’s learn from our past. Let’s don’t let life’s hurricane’s that’s brought destruction in our lives, have an opportunity to repeat itself.