It just didn’t look right. When your life is turned upside down by a catastrophic event like a rampant hurricane what you don’t need is two national guardsmen pointing their rifles at you and ordering you to leave the only home you know.
It looked so bad because it looked as though they didn’t care and they should have done. There is something in most of us that cares for people when we see a need — we are touched by orphaned children in the wake of the tsunami or people having to live in the stench-ridden waters of New Orleans.
Preach the word
Paul’s command to Timothy is clear in 2 Timothy 4.2 — ‘preach the word’, but it is clear from the following phrases that he expects it will change the lives of the listeners to that word. Do it to ‘reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience’. Lives will be changed when God’s word is taught — it is to be expected. But we all know most people don’t like change — they would rather stay in their comfort zone. We have all been frustrated by young people who turn up to our groups week in and week out yet seem to show very little change in how they live. We have taught them for weeks, prayed for them for hours, they have a lot of knowledge, know how to answer all our questions yet we know their lives are essentially schizophrenic. They live as Christians should when they’re with us but we know that doesn’t happen in other environments. They like to be around us but they are not true disciples.
