Standing in Awe

Lord, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in AWE of your deeds, Lord… in wrath remember mercy.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in God my Savior.” — Habakkuk 3:2, 18

Thank you, friends, for your genuine concern and prayers for our family. Ann and I are in Orlando, and will hunker down for hurricane Irma. Current reports (as of 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept 10) show Irma roaring through the Florida Keys before making landfall on the state’s Gulf coast. That is bad news for a lot of people. Projection models show her destructive winds coming through our neighborhoods early Monday morning. So we pray, prepare well, and wait.

Personally, my heart has moved from anxiety and restlessness to a calm sense of peace and God’s presence in the past few hours. I’m asking Jesus to wake up from sleeping in the back of the boat and say a few words to calm the storms. I’m also reflecting on the past three weeks: Ann and I witnessed the totality of a solar eclipse in Santee, South Carolina, on August 21. It was breathtaking!

Then on August 28, Harvey flooded friends and family across Texas, and my parents were rescued by canoe from rising water. Their home of 46 years still has two feet of water in it nearly two weeks later. They are alive, in good spirits, and embracing the reality of near total loss of all worldly goods at 81 years of age. And now, Irma. And an 8.1 earthquake in Mexico reported Friday morning, and Syria’s refugees, and …

So, I meditate on Habakkuk 3:2 and 18, taking joy today: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in AWE of your deeds, Lord… in wrath remember mercy. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in God my Savior.”

Please pray storms Irma, Jose and Katia die quick deaths. And let us all love well those God has put around us. Peace to you.