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Hurricane Katrina: Revealing the Character of a Nation
(9/11/2005)

“Blame is the luxury of those who don’t bear the burden of making the decisions.”

Hurricane Katrina appears to be the worst natural disaster to ever strike the United States. My heart and my prayers go out to all of those who have lost loved ones and those who have lost everything they own. And I applaud the heroic effort of all those who are going above and beyond the call of duty to try and help those left destitute by the storm.

It was just 9 short months ago that the world was hit by the greatest natural disaster in the past 35 years (since the cyclone in Bangladesh killed an estimated 500,000 in 1970). The tsunami was a horrifying event which most of us witnessed unfold on our televisions. While my heart aches for the victims of both tragedies, one can’t help but notice the stark contrast between the reaction of the Indonesian and American peoples.

For months after the tsunami, our television screens were filled with pictures of stunned and tearful survivors of all ages and of government officials from around the world promising that help was on the way. However, it took 6 days for help to begin arriving in the hardest hit areas and at this writing there are still families who lost everything living in the streets. Nevertheless, not once can I recall a single Indonesian expressing their anger over why they were not getting the help they needed or trying to place blame on government officials.

How very different from Katrina…from the day after the hurricane struck there has been face after angry face filling the screens telling everyone with a microphone how enraged they are that they aren’t getting immediate help and how someone in government (usually President Bush) needs to pay for their lack of response. The media and the Democratic party fanned the flames because they saw an opportunity to profit from the tragedy. The liberal media wanted to sell more advertising and nothing attracts readers and advertisers like a good scandal. The Democratic party has been going to ever more extreme means since they lost the White House and Congress and they weren’t about to let an opportunity like this pass by. Led by the ever predictable Senator Kennedy, they proceeded to blame the President for the weather and then for the fact that help wasn’t instantaneously available to every person within a disaster area the size of Great Britain. Everyone is insisting that somebody’s head roll and it looks like the first scapegoat to fall will be the Director of FEMA.

What a sad commentary on the mindset of the average American. The concepts of entitlement, instant gratification, and blame have become so entrenched in our minds that we have lost the virtues of patience, endurance, and understanding. These virtues were abundantly clear in the people of Indonesia. There was no sense of outrage or entitlement. They were grateful for the help whether it arrived early or late. Unlike here in the USA where we once again embarrassed ourselves before the world by showing that we think we DESERVE better and if we don’t get what we deserve then we’re going to BLAME somebody. It doesn’t matter that it was a logistical nightmare on a scale that has never been attempted before. Never mind the fact that to prepare the level of instantaneous response which everyone is calling for would cost trillions of dollars in government spending in every potential natural disaster area around the country for events that may or may never happen and which no one wants to pay for. No, people didn’t get help as quickly as we think they should have so now we need to have investigative committees set up…there need to be hearings…we will have years of investigative reports by the media trying to find out who else we can blame…heads need to roll…and if they can ratchet up the volume enough then maybe the Democrats might get back in the White House next time around.

Where is the basic understanding that this was a NATURAL DISASTER? No one’s to blame! We live in a fallen world but God is working out His sovereign will even through events like this. And there never has been and there never will be the ability to respond to a disaster of this scale so that everyone gets the help they need in time. This whole finger pointing exercise is indicative of a selfish and petty culture and it just encourages the world to treat us with contempt.

But what can you expect from a country which has abandoned their God? Or perhaps more accurately, that have setup themselves as God and their desires as his commandments. Does the following sound like anyone you know?

2 Timothy 3:1-5 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these.
It’s still not too late for us to get off this self-destructive track that we’re on. It’s explained in 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.