Observations From Hurricane Katrina

Tom Shrader addresses the theological questions raised by Hurricane Katrina, cautioning against both reckless attribution of the disaster to God's specific judgment and any weakening of God's sovereignty in response. Drawing from Genesis 6 and the life of Noah, he outlines the character, big-picture understanding, clear assignment, and perseverance required for faithful Christian living. His central application is that the compassion and generosity Christians display in visible crises must also be practiced every day toward the spiritual and physical needs of people right around them.

“What we know must trump what we feel — and when I talk about what we know, I'm talking about the scripture and what the scripture says.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Standalone Teachings

Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 41 min

Themes: suffering, sovereignty, compassion, generosity, perseverance, faithfulness, natural disaster, daily service, questioning God, struggling with doubt, feeling overwhelmed by tragedy, parent, church member, everyday believer, new believer, navigating crisis

Scripture: Romans 11:33, Daniel 4:34, Genesis 6:9, Genesis 6:11-12, Genesis 6:14-19, Romans 5:3, Ephesians 6, 2 Thessalonians 1:3

Theological Themes: theodicy, problem of evil, divine sovereignty, God's judgment, biblical narrative, sanctification, becoming holy, providential suffering

Full Transcript

The Blame Game

I want to spend the balance of the time talking about the things you would observe. We did this same thing a little over four years ago after 9/11, and it is interesting that much of what we are going to talk about today is very similar. There is a different twist to it, though. With 9/11, we could point and say, "There is the culprit." But with this hurricane, we even use terminology like "an act of God."

The blame game started almost immediately following the disaster. Probably one of the most extreme examples came from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who identified the United States as a fascist state run by corporate robber barons. He connected the hurricane to global warming and to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who had previously served as head of the National Republican Organization. Kennedy wrote this: "As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi's Gulf, it's worth recalling the central role that the Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, played in derailing the Kyoto Treaty." He closed the article by writing: "Now we're all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependency, which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East, and now Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climatic chaos we have bequeathed our children."

Also weighing in was Pat Robertson, who — and this may be sarcasm — warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Kennedy referenced this, suggesting that perhaps it was Barbour's memo opposing the Kyoto Treaty that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst force for the Mississippi coast. Jesse Jackson called the situation "obvious racism," citing a lack of sensitivity, a lack of compassion, and what he described as a historical indifference to the pain of the poor and of Black people. Jackson said, speaking of the media, "They've criminalized the people of New Orleans by focusing on the violence and the looting." The mayor of New Orleans echoed that sentiment, and a cascading chorus of similar voices followed.

The other side quickly pushed back, acknowledging that the response was not fast enough but arguing that evacuating cities is the responsibility of state and local governments. They pointed to pictures of school buses that could have been used, and to local authorities who sent people to the Superdome without adequate food and water. I do not have a horse in this race. I do know that this debate will get settled if we are patient, because the picture of what happened is already more clear now than it was a week ago, and it will be more clear a month from now.

Where Was God?

The blame game I want to talk about is not about this government or that government, this agency or that agency, or global warming. I want to talk about poor old God. Inevitably, in a situation like this, we get questions: Where was God? Why didn't God stop this? If God is a God of love, why is there evil in the world?

While we talk about this as it relates to this disaster, we have versions of this in our private and personal lives as well. We go to the doctor, hear there is a spot on the lung, and suddenly there is suffering, and we ask: Why would God allow this? Why would God do this? I am not minimizing that in any way. We even call these events acts of God.

I think it is important to remember what Paul writes in Romans chapter 11, verse 33: "Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, how inscrutable are His ways, for who has known the mind of the Lord?" I love to remind us in moments like this that doctrine is absolutely critical. What we know must trump what we feel. And when I talk about what we know, I am talking about Scripture and what Scripture says.

Where was God when this hurricane hit? The same place He has always been, reigning in heaven. Does He care? He absolutely cares. Did He cause it? I think we get into real trouble when we start down that road of saying He caused this or He did not cause this.

Caution About Specific Judgments

I have some quotes that concern me, and I want to be patient and work through them. This first one is from an anti-abortion activist in South Carolina. He says: "In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion. Providence provided for it. Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. Greater divine judgment is coming on America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion."

Is abortion a sin? You have certainly heard us say so, and we have not hidden our view of what we believe God's view of abortion is. But I am not sure abortion is any worse in New Orleans than it is in Phoenix. A Christian in Israel drew a connection between Jewish settlers being removed from Gaza and Americans being forced out of their homes in New Orleans, writing: "Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible."

God's Judgment and the Danger of Misattribution

What we are about to experience is the lifting of God's hand of protection and the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and the people of Israel. There is another man in Philadelphia who has a somewhat different view. The very week that the hurricane hit New Orleans, the city had scheduled a festival called Southern Decadence, a gay and lesbian gathering. He writes this: "We take no joy in the death of innocent people, but we believe that God is in control of the weather, and the day that Bourbon Street and the French Quarter were flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We do call this an act of God."

I really encourage you to be careful when you start using language like this. As I said, if what God is going to do is start judging sin everywhere this way, and if indeed that is what this is, then we all better run home and sandbag our houses. Does God judge sin? He absolutely does. Is abortion an abomination to God? It absolutely is. Is homosexuality a sin and a deviation and a perversion of human sexuality? It is, and we know that because the Bible teaches it. We know that God will deal with individuals involved in those sins — in any sin — and that unless we come to Christ in repentance and faith, whatever our sin, there are consequences.

The Danger of Cataloging Sin

Let me stop for a moment, because I want to talk about something. We have a habit of cataloging sins and saying this one is awful, and this one is awful, but this one — well, boys will be boys. This one is just a weakness. We love softening terms. I had a man sitting in my office who said to me, "I slipped up." I asked what he meant, and he said he slipped up by having an affair. You did not slip up. It takes a great deal of work to have an affair — you have to pursue someone, you have to find a place to go, you have to make yourself presentable. You did not slip up.

I want us to be careful here and to understand that God is serious about all sin. He is serious about lying, about stealing, about every sin He lays out in Scripture. If you are here and you do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior, you need to understand that at the end of your life comes condemnation and separation from Him in a place called hell. Jesus came and died so that we might have eternal life. We took communion just a few minutes ago, and at our church we try to make that as serious as we can — it is a declaration that I am a follower of Jesus Christ, that He is my Lord and Savior and Master, that I understand I am a sinner separated from Him because of that sin. "The wages of sin are death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus."

I am entirely in favor of calling sin what it is. I simply find myself very uncomfortable when we begin trying to interpret specific circumstances and attribute them directly to God's judgment. Did God cause this? In my mind, He either caused it or allowed it. Where we get into trouble is when we try to explain these things away and, in doing so, begin to alter who God really is.

The Sovereignty of God

A gentleman by the name of Tony Campolo wrote an article that week attempting to sort all of this out. He rightly addresses what we have just discussed and how inappropriate that kind of attribution is. But then he begins to tamper with the character of God. From what is a lengthy article, here is the heart of it: "Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed." Now we have a problem.

The rabbi is the one who wrote the book *Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?* It was a popular book about twenty years ago, and people — Christians, people in Bible studies and churches — kept telling me I needed to read it. Finally I gave in. I picked it up and began scanning the table of contents, and I turned to chapter seven. The title of that chapter is: "God Cannot Do Everything, But He Can Do Some Important Things." This book was making its rounds twenty years ago among Christians who were passing it along to one another, and it is a striking example of two things: a lack of discernment in the Christian community, and the urgent need to go to Scripture and understand what it actually says.

Scripture tells us that God is sovereign. Webster defines sovereignty this way — as a noun, one that exercises supreme authority; as an adjective, superlative in quality, one of the most exalted, possessed of supreme power, unlimited in extent; and as a noun again, freedom from external control or controlling influence. God is sovereign. King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the world and the most powerful man of his time, was one night walking along the top of his palace, surveying everything around him, and declared that this was what he had built and what he had done. We know these words because Daniel records them in Daniel chapter four, where Nebuchadnezzar gives his own testimony: how great I am, look at what I have accomplished. God struck him down, and for seven years he lived as a beast, roaming in the fields and eating grass. Then he came to his senses, and here is his testimony, recorded in Daniel chapter four, verse 34: "But at the end of that period..."

Responding to Tragedy: Six Ways to React

"I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation." God is in absolute control, and there is no maverick molecule loose in the world. So often in times of tragedy, we want to race in as though we have to save God's reputation — but God does not shy away from responsibility.

God says in His Word, speaking of the firstborns of Egypt that were struck down, "the Lord struck them down." God asked, "Who made the deaf? Who made the dumb? Who made the blind? It was me. I bring prosperity. I bring calamity." God never shies away from that, so we do not have to run out and rescue His reputation, though His reputation takes a beating at times like this. God is a sovereign God, a God who is in absolute control, a God who sifts everything that comes through to your life and allows or causes those things to take place for your own good.

Philip Ryken this week wrote a thoughtful article about how we respond to the hurricane. He mentioned six things. Let me highlight them, and then I have one point that will become the focal point for the balance of the night.

Sorrow, Humility, and Pity

The first response is sorrow and grieving for the dead. These are painful pictures — hearing the accounts of people watching bodies float by, seeing people trapped in their homes, dying before care could reach them.

The second response is humility, acknowledging the limits of our human abilities. Ryken writes: "Many people are angry today and for many reasons. There are so many people to blame — the ones who didn't evacuate, or spend the money to build a bigger levee, or develop a better disaster plan, or provide help sooner — it goes on and on." Anger usually comes when people's expectations go unmet, and this country, with its high expectations, expects more. We are entitled to our opinions about this, but we should also see the frailty of the human condition in all of this. How weak we are in the aftermath of a hurricane. We casually put our confidence in modern telecommunications, in our insurance coverage, in the ability of our government to do something about a disaster — and yet how easy it now seems to end up in a situation, even right here in America, where there is nothing that anyone can do, and how quickly that becomes total desperation.

The third response is pity — knowing that the depravity we are witnessing is common to all of us. I was struck at how quickly we said, "Look at the depravity of man, look at the looting, look at them." I understand that reaction, but that is us. That is mankind. That is how we come into the world; that is our nature. Maybe you are less bold than to run in front of a television camera with a TV on your shoulder. Perhaps you are the one who says, "Tell him I'm not here" — a liar. Or, "Where did you get the pen? I brought it from work" — a thief. It is a picture of who we are.

When the hurricane was gaining speed out in the Gulf, people were already registering websites like KatrinaRelief.com and trying to rip people off as fast as they could. Yes, we are sinful, and this is a great mirror into our own hearts.

Indignation, Trust, and Compassion

The fourth response is indignation, seeing that the poor have suffered even more than the rich. Ryken writes: "Almost no one on the Gulf Coast has gone unscathed, but more of the poor were left behind — in many cases because they didn't have a vehicle that could get them out of town, or the money to get a seat on a bus or an airplane. The righteous see the structure of injustice behind the disproportionate suffering of the poor." We hate that, but it seems true.

The fifth response is trust, believing that God is working out His purpose for our nation, for our world, and for ourselves. We run from suffering and do everything we can to alleviate it — and I understand that — but there is also a role that suffering plays in our lives. We know that the testing of our faith produces endurance, that suffering can produce patience and joy, teach us, purify us, and reveal to us who we really are. It helps our prayer life. We become an example for others that shows the sovereignty of God. I do know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The sixth and final response — and Ryken calls it the most important — is compassion: helping those who are suffering and will suffer. That brings us almost full circle to where we started.

The Challenge of the Mundane

I am amazed and inspired — not surprised — to watch the generosity and compassion of people, millions and millions of Americans, but particularly church people, who respond to something like this. It is an extraordinary moment, and we rise to it.

But here is the reality: every day, right around you, are the equivalent of these hurricane victims. Every day there are people right around you — spiritual evacuees, if you will — who plead for your help and who need your help. My plea to you is not just to rise to a specific high moment, to a crisis. My plea to you is to be God's people and to thrive in the midst of the mundaneness of life, because most of life is not this mountaintop.

Character in the Ordinary

Open your Bibles, if you would, to Genesis chapter 6. I want to show you a picture of mundane-ness at work. My sense is that in most cases, most of us do really well in these moments of crisis in our life. Where we fail is in the ordinariness of life.

In Genesis chapter 6, verse 9, we meet a man named Noah. "This is an account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God and he had three sons." In the ordinariness of life, here's the first thing you need to have: character. He's blameless. He's a godly man.

Are you a person of character? We had an election in 1992 where character was the issue, and the American public said they didn't care about character. I thought character would carry the day. It didn't, and then we ultimately saw what happened.

Here's the deal about character: it doesn't matter if you don't have any. But you and I are looking for people of character, and where we need to look first is in the mirror, in the ordinariness of life, the mundane-ness of life. That's where we live. If you watch the movies, you would think we were just going from one exhilarating, swashbuckling, saving moment to another. But that's not the real world. That's where we live, and that's where we have to find meaning and purpose. That's where you're going to find great testing — not in how you handle some extraordinary event, but in how you handle the ordinariness of life. You're going to have character, and you're going to build character.

Getting the Big Picture

Here's the second thing: you better get the big picture. Chapter 6, verse 11: "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on the earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, 'I'm going to put an end to all the people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and I am surely going to destroy them.'"

You better understand the big picture. If you're going to get the big picture, here are the steps you need to go through. Number one: who is God? The only way you're going to find that out is to go into this book. You don't need to get three friends and go to Starbucks and start a discussion about what you think and what you feel. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter what you feel.

In moments of crisis, suffering, trial, or pain, we have a huge temptation to distort God — to say that somehow He's impotent at this moment, or distracted, or He can only go so far. But that's not the God of the Bible. You need to understand the God of the Bible. Then you need to understand yourself, and to understand yourself, you don't need to go through some process of getting your friends to say you're okay and reading self-help books. If you want to understand who you are, you just read this book. It tells you who you are.

Once you know who God is and who you are, you need to understand the world. It's nice to have history and sociology, but it's really helpful to have this Word. Then something important happens: when you understand who God is, you begin to see where you fit. If all God wanted to do was get us to heaven, then the moment we believed, He'd have taken us. But He left us here. He is working in your life and mine.

Understanding Your Assignment

That brings me to the third point: you better understand your assignment. Noah's was easy, because God spoke to him directly. Look at verse 14. "This is how you build it. The ark's to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark within 18 inches of the top. Put a door on the side of the ark. Make a lower middle deck. I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth and destroy all life under it, every creature that has breathed life. I'm going to destroy it." And then He says in verse 19: "You bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you."

One of my favorite ads depicts Noah sitting there as the animals march onto the ark. There's a buzz. And then he trudges off to find another mosquito to bring on board. I love that ad. God is really clear with Noah: go build the ark, get two of every creature, bring them in, get the food, do this. God is not equally explicit with you, but He is clear with you. He is calling you to be a man, a woman, a student of God in the midst of this world. He has wired you uniquely to fit and work in the body of Christ.

I got here this morning around 5:30 and was working in my office when I heard someone out making copies. I went out, and it was a volunteer who works with special-needs kids here at church. We have twelve special-needs kids who get special attention, and I think ten of them are on the autism spectrum. I said to her, "This must be really difficult," and she said, "I was made for this. This is my passion." You could see her light up. That wouldn't be something I'd want to do, and I suppose she might not want to do what I do. That's not the point.

It's not important for you to figure out everyone else's gifts and calling. It's important for you to figure out who you are, what your gift is, and where God has placed you. God has given you gifts, talents, and resources — time, energy, effort, work, money — and you are to steward them. What has He called you to do?

Knowing Your Calling

You need to be able to answer that question. If you can't sit down, have a dialogue, and say in a few sentences, "This is what God's called me to do," then you need to start to pray, to fast, to study, and to pursue it so you can see what God's called you to do. I can give you some tips. What do you like to do? Because that's what it's going to be. What energizes you? Do you see fruit?

It's not about just being faithful. I understand it's important to be faithful, but sometimes we get sidetracked with faithfulness and we forget that there's also fruitfulness. What's He called you to do?

Perseverance: The Character Trait That Surfaces

And then something kicks in in the midst of this. There's a character trait that really starts to surface — perseverance. From the time that God said to Noah, "I'm going to send a flood," till the first drop of rain fell was a period of 120 years. So here's the call that comes to Noah: build an ark.

I want you to see this wasn't easy work — and not just in terms of go get this and nail this and pound this and bring this together. He's got what I'm guessing would be just human opposition. Many scholars believed that at this point in time it had not yet rained on the earth. Even if it had, he's in the middle of the desert.

Can you imagine the people gathering around saying, "What are you doing?" "I'm building an ark." This is like stopping in the middle of Gila Bend and some guy building a giant boat waiting for the water to hit. My suspicion would be that the ridicule would begin. People started to plan their vacations and family reunions around watching Noah build this ark. When Noah started, their kids were just this big, and now they're 110. But old Noah kept grinding away, pounding away.

I'll give you another thing, and I don't know if I could handle this. After 120 years, Noah enters the ark and closes the door with exactly the same number of people he started with. Nobody ever responded, converted, or had their life changed in the midst of that.

Discipline and Time

When we talk about perseverance, I think of two things: discipline and time. I love college football. Yesterday, in spite of the results — and the results did not go like I would have liked all day long — it was just an incredible day. Watching Iowa get throttled at Iowa State was awful. To see the 50,000 fans, to know there were 30,000 people who came to the game outside the stadium and couldn't get in. Watching ASU last night, terrible ending, but it was just a great game. Ohio State — I love it.

But do you understand there are only 11 of these all year? The other 350-plus days, these guys are grinding to get to that one moment — practicing, working. We've got those moments, and they've got to be exhilarating. When you're coming down that tunnel and there's the band and the people cheering, there's everything.

The great concert pianist Peter Rüski said this: "Before I was a genius, I was a drudge." We used to go to a church, and one Sunday I came in and this lady was playing the piano and she was absolutely incredible. Not just talented — it was an unbelievable Sunday of playing. I'm thinking, man, I would love to be able to do that.

The next day I happened to be at church and I heard piano music in the worship center. I went in and there she was sitting at the piano. I thought I was going to get a private concert, so I sat down. And I thought, well, that's not much — that sounds like scales. Is she playing scales? So I went up after about ten minutes and said, "What are you doing?" She said, "I'm playing scales. I'll play them for two, three, four hours today." I said, "Are you telling me you practice your scales two or three, four hours every Monday?" And she said, "No. Every day."

I had lied the day before, because I said I would do anything to be able to play like that. But I'm not playing scales — that's boring. I don't want to practice, I want to go play the game. I don't want to hit balls, I want to go to the first tee. And I'm saying to you, our life is in that mundane.

The Long Middle

I'm watching it now with Haley getting ready for this baby, and it's taken me right back to when the girls were small. We didn't have any money, we had one car, and we couldn't figure a way to get a car for Susan. She was there all day with the kids, and her highlight was to take them for a walk — all day, every day. There'd be days when I'd come home and she would just be whipped. "All I've said is no. I'm sick of changing diapers. I'm sick of this. I'm tired of this." And I said, "Suze, someday."

It's pretty amazing now to watch the one who's in nuclear medicine and the other who's a nurse walk their mom in for her chemo treatments — to read the scans and say, "Mom, don't worry about that spot, look at this." To watch one of them come by the house and give her shots. It's just incredible. But you don't see it in the middle of it, do you? You can't possibly. All you see are dirty diapers. All you see are two-a-day practices. All you see are the discipline and the routine.

If you're going to persevere, it's going to take discipline, and it just takes time. It's not accidental that this whole idea of hardship and perseverance are linked together.

Perseverance in Tribulation

Let me give you three Bible references. Make notes of them and you can work through them on your own. Romans chapter 5, verse 3 — Paul writes, "and not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance." There is the link: suffering, difficulty, discipline, perseverance.

Ephesians chapter 6 is a passage I never saw in this light until working through it this week. As Paul closes out this magnificent book, he talks about the full armor of God. I am always focusing on that — put on the full armor of God. But then he closes with this: "with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance." I put on the full armor of God, and now I persevere. Remember what we said: in the Greek, "put on" means to put on and leave on, once and for all, the full armor of God, because twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you are in a battle.

Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, and he is praising them. Verse 3: "We ought always give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting because your faith is greatly enlarged and the love of each of you toward one another grows even greater. Therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecution and affliction which you endure."

Responding to Tragedy — and to Ordinary Life

Here is my point. I am not surprised in the least that this church, other churches, and frankly even pagans would rise to respond to what we have seen. I heard a story this week — and I will say upfront, I am not a huge animal person. If you have a cat, that is fine, but I am not sure why you would. We have a dog, and we have a dog only because one of the kids got it and then left the house without taking it.

But I heard stories from rescue workers, and here was their charge: take only humans out — no animals, no pets. One man described picking up an elderly woman in her eighties in a wheelchair, getting her onto the boat, and leaving her dog behind. As the boat pulled away, that dog just paddled and paddled and paddled after them. I do not particularly care deeply about dogs, and yet I found tears welling up in my eyes thinking of the human tragedy all around that moment. When you hear those stories, you are going to respond. That does not amaze me.

Here is what I want to be amazed at. I want to be amazed at our faithfulness in the midst of the ordinariness of life, the mundaneness of life. I want us to find meaning and purpose each and every day. I want your vision to be sharpened — not only to see people who are physically hurting all around you, but to see people who are literally spiritual refugees all around you, people for whom you might be their only connection to the one true living God. That is an awesome privilege, and if you are searching for meaning and purpose in life, there is a pretty good place to find it.

When I see an event like this, the deeper discussions we had at the beginning of this series will need to come back on a disaster-by-disaster basis, because we will always have to return to those questions. But the call to you and to me is to find meaning and purpose not in the extraordinary. Any person can rise to that. It is in the each-and-every-day work of life that we pound it out.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray this morning. As we pray, we obviously think of the victims. When I saw the date on the bulletin — September 11 — you cannot help but think of that event as well, and of all that God has for us in calling us to be strong and to persevere.

Father, we pray to You as Your people here this morning, thanking You for Your Son, Jesus Christ, who provides eternal life to those who will come to Him in repentance and faith. We pray for those who, four years ago, saw their lives turned upside down through an act of terror — a nation that was transformed, at least for a moment. We look at the events of the last few days, and we understand the blame that is being assigned, the desire to figure out whose fault this is, the impulse to politicize — but, God, what we care about is this: thank You for the people in this church. I know them well. I know they will be writing checks to Katrina relief. I know they will bring food and whatever else is needed.

But, God, beyond all of that, here is what I pray — that this would be a church that welcomes hurting people each and every day of the year, that we would be sensitized to the people around us and their needs, and that You would activate our hearts and touch our hearts so that we would do all that we are called to do, to be the men, women, and students You have called us to be. God, let us be salt and light in the midst of a dark and dying world. Let people look at us and see You. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.