I wonder if we have been humbled by the hand of the Lord yet? I know I wasn't until last night. My friends and I had been preparing to be hit by the hurricane considering we are merely and hour and a half away from Houston, which was originally thought to be where the hurricane was going to make landfall; that is, after it wiped out the entire island of Galveston. People in College Station were panicking and everyone was buying out the water and bread in H-E-B, and not to mention the gas. Well, it ended up that Rita turned a bit more northeast than expected and College Station was spared from everything except for weak gusts of wind and sprinkling rain. At first I was a little disappointed because the whole town was going crazy and then nothing even happened. I was counting on seeing how amazing the weather really can be during a storm so large. I quickly realized my sentiments were wrong and should have praised the Lord for sparing us and much of Houston. Then, last night, my fiancee made the statement, "It's funny how humans are so cocky and arrogant, exulting in their own accomplishments; but all God has to do is send a hurricane our way and people are running scared to escape its path." And it is true. He sends a hurricane (passively or actively...either way he is sovereign over it) into New Orleans, and people are devastated. A tsunami into southeast asia...and people are brought low, wondering how something like this could happen. But I think we need to acknowledge that God has purposes in everything he does, even the hard things. In fact, most of the hard things God does are meant to humble us and bring us low that we might "seek him while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near." Even if we did not get hit by the hurricane, we saw it's damage and have been affected by it. There will be many Christians pointing the finger and saying things like, "New Orleans was a center of much sin. They deserved it!" Which may be true when considering God's righteousness and justice. But all our lives have, at one time or another, been the center of much sin. When Christians see what happened with these hurricanes, we should thank the Lord for his mercy (whether we were hit by it or not) and posture ourselves to seek his face. God is sovereign over all things; if he sends us calamity we can not boast that it is undeserved. And if he sends us safety, it is out of his abundant grace and mercy.