INSPIRASUNS

It’s difficult to know where to begin this little blog this morning. We are all safe here, and our city, compared to others is just fine. Hurricane Helene has moved through the state of FL, making her way now through the neighboring states with a vengeance. She made landfall in the Big Bend area at 140 miles per hour. The storm surge impacted the entire west coast of Florida, and many points inland. The devastation, well, it will be massive.

As we left our office on Wednesday, sandbagged and prepped for the worst, I loaded up my backpack with work to tackle from home. I was looking forward to getting things done without the day-to-day distractions in the office. Well, yesterday morning shortly after 10:00 a.m. our power went out. We were kind of shocked because at that point there wasn’t much happening. I made the standard contact with the power company, reporting the outage, and the message, as I expected bounced back that they were aware but couldn’t guarantee when it would be restored. I admit I was thinking, no worries, it will be back on pretty quickly. I mean, we were even seeing blue sky at that time, (obviously before the storm moved through).

Well, 10:00 a.m. turned into 11:00 a.m. and then noon, by 2:00 p.m. I was getting extremely irritated that I was going to lose the entire day. Finally, around 4:00 p.m. a neighbor sent a text that he had called the power company and they were working on a tree that had fallen on a power line. They anticipated a return to power in “hours not days”, by 11:30 p.m. 😦 . Yep, confirmed, the day was shot as far as work goes.

Like most, I was glued to social media and the updates from the sources I trust most for the weather. As the storm began to make her way up through the state, I started to see videos of the storm surge moving in, the wind damage and so much more. The estimates on the water levels in some towns were topping 15′. You really can’t process that type of news.

This morning I realized the message Father was sending me yesterday when the power went out and I couldn’t immerse myself in work. He wanted me to focus on what was happening, focus on His children that were being affected. He wanted me to stop, and see the most important thing in this world, His children. He wanted me to stop and spend time in prayer with Him. Instead, I was mumbling and grumbling about myself, and my time lost working. Ya, pretty selfish.

Friends, our relationship with Father, and our relationship with each other, (family, friends, total strangers), that is truly all that matters. That is why these are the first two commandments. The rest of what we feel is important, well, ya, not so much. We have let satan divide us, God’s children for the most petty, ridiculous reasons, political candidates, religious beliefs, personal beliefs, heck, even food choices divide people. Seriously?

I don’t think Father can show us any clearer how much He wants us to be together as His children. This morning as the sun comes up, there will be incredible destruction across many of the southern states. Entire towns will literally be gone. I don’t know about you, but I’m not thinking about a political candidate or whether someone chooses to eat meat or not. I’m thinking about how can I help those people who this morning, have lost everything, including loved ones.

As we move forward, we need to be prioritizing, and the first on the list is Father. He must come first in all that we do, and then His children, family, friends, and even total strangers, a close second. We can show His love in so many ways to so many. Stop letting satan divide, because he’s getting great pleasure out of it, and he’s done a masterful job. Time to say “No more”.

As you begin your day, please take a moment to say a prayer for everyone affected by this storm, and continue to lift those prayers in the days ahead. As you make your way throughout the day, keep Father front and center and show His grace to others, yes even that total stranger. Don’t do what I did yesterday. I focused on myself, not on what was truly important.

Psalm 9:10
And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.