A Prayer for Safe Haven in the brink of Hurricane Irma May 2006: Miami, Everglades and the Keys. Kristin and I were several years into ministering under Living Rock Ministries and were blessed to be able to extend our vacation after I was one of the trip winners for my work that year. Even 9 months later Miami was still cleaning up after being clipped by Hurricane Katrina. We worshipped on the beach at sunrise with our banners and flags. We rented zoo bikes and road the long spurs throughout the Miami zoo. In other parks we fed monkeys, watched parrots and paid our respects to sea animals. The Fruit and Spice Park was still damaged, but the staff were so willing to describe their amazing plants to us. The waitress at the Alehouse in Doral (west Miami) was so receptive to the ministry music Kristin and I had written and were giving out on this trip. And the food there was so good. We were saddened at the shape of Flamingo (at the end of the road of Everglades National Park) which had been decimated with both the hurricane and a brush fire in the same time period. At the Keys, we experienced dolphins and swam with the rays; the name of the boat we road on was fitting called “Amazing Grace.” What I have been praying for lately however is not grace, but mercy. I wish for God to stop Hurricane Irma in its tracks and have mercy on His people. I’ve been praying for this. I want people to know that there is a God and he cares so much for His creation. I want the words of Psalm 107:23-31 to play out in real time before the calamity strikes (as read in my grandma’s Bible): “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. HE MAKETH THE STORM A CALM, SO THAT THE WAVES THEREOF ARE STILL. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them until their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! These words were originally written of the mortal sailor, However we all are sailors, sailing on this earthen planet on our daily orbit around the sun. May we cry out to the Lord in one accord, even as we brace for what natural circumstances would tell us can only result in destruction, to bring those in destruction’s path out of distress by God’s great hand. I call out Hurricane Irma by name: May your storms be silenced immediately so that the people may be able to return to their desired and intact homes and havens, on land or in the harbors. I ask this in the name of Jesus, my Savior and my Lord. Amen.

May 2006:  Miami, Everglades and the Keys.  Kristin and I were several years into ministering under Living Rock Ministries and were blessed to be able to extend our vacation after I was one of the trip winners for my work that year.  

Even 9 months later Miami was still cleaning up after being clipped by Hurricane Katrina.  We worshipped on the beach at sunrise with our banners and flags.  We rented zoo bikes and road the long spurs throughout the Miami zoo.  In other parks we fed monkeys, watched parrots and paid our respects to sea animals. The Fruit and Spice Park was still damaged, but the staff were so willing to describe their amazing plants to us.  The waitress at the Alehouse in Doral (west Miami) was so receptive to the ministry music Kristin and I had written and were giving out on this trip.  And the food there was so good.  We were saddened at the shape of Flamingo  (at the end of the road of Everglades National Park) which had been decimated with both the hurricane and a brush fire in the same time period.  At the Keys, we experienced dolphins and swam with the rays; the name of the boat we road on was fitting called “Amazing Grace.”  

What I have been praying for lately however is not grace, but mercy.  I wish for God to stop Hurricane Irma in its tracks and have mercy on His people.  I’ve been praying for this.  I want people to know that there is a God and he cares so much for His creation.  I want the words of Psalm 107:23-31 to play out in real time before the calamity strikes (as read in my grandma’s Bible):  “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths:  their soul is melted because of trouble.  They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.  Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses.  HE MAKETH THE STORM A CALM, SO THAT THE WAVES THEREOF ARE STILL.  Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them until their desired haven.  Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!"  

These words were originally written of the mortal sailor, However we all are sailors, sailing on this earthen planet on our daily orbit around the sun.  May we cry out to the Lord in one accord, even as we brace for what natural circumstances would tell us can only result in destruction, to bring those in destruction’s path out of distress by God’s great hand.  I call out Hurricane Irma by name:  May your storms be silenced immediately so that the people may be able to return to their desired and intact homes and havens, on land or in the harbors.  I ask this in the name of Jesus, my Savior and my Lord.  Amen.