I thought about that interrupted retreat in Gulfport, in which we prayed, sang, celebrated, and drew closer together than ever, sure that God was doing something. We believe he’s always moving, that nothing happens for no reason. So what was this natural disaster all about?
It’s hard to say for certain. God works in ways we don’t always understand, and where he hasn’t clearly revealed his purposes, we shouldn’t claim to know them. Nonetheless, in a sense, this storm felt like a powerful, God-glorifying, but very unexpected answer to our prayer.
We’d asked him to move in a way so big it would be out of our range. And that’s just what he did. He scattered our group all over the world with that hurricane. Without it, as close as we’d grown, most of us probably would’ve stayed close by.
We had a burden for New Orleans. God had a burden for the world, and that’s exactly where this storm sent us.
Katrina forced us out of our range. God was saying, “Give up your small ambitions.” He moved in such a large way that not only was it out of our range, but we couldn’t even see it for a good while. Over the years I would chart the movements of my friends and see how God was using them everywhere, powerfully, exponentially—because of that storm.
We had envisioned a great, old-fashioned revival that would shake the city of New Orleans. We imagined people crying out in repentance at the Superdome. That had come to pass, in a way, but the Lord’s ear was tuned into the cries of people throughout the world. This was something I’d struggled with from the very beginning: We serve a “big picture” God. No matter how much we try to dream big, it’s never big enough to outdistance what God wants to do through us.
New Orleans would heal over time. Bourbon Street would hear the sound of jazz once again—not to mention our Saints would go on to win their first Super Bowl, an answered prayer for every native. God moved in more ways than one, of course. He mobilized believers across the world to respond in love and compassion. There were stories of people finding Christ in the midst of crisis. And then there was the Out of Range group; we were driven out of our range and into God’s.
In the book of Job, there’s a verse that says that God speaks from the whirlwind. We know that to be true. There’s another verse, however, that describes our situation even better. God says, “I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known” (Zech. 7:14 esv).
That’s a verse about the terrible days when the people of Israel and Judah were scattered in defeat, but it holds an amazing truth: Scattering his people is one of God’s choice tactics for advancing the kingdom. He will do whatever it takes to get his people into “all the nations that they had not known.”
Christianity spread in the first century when the Romans drove Jewish believers out of their home country. Wherever they went, seeds of churches were scattered on new ground; then God sent Paul to water and tend the new fellowships.
Then there was the Haystack Prayer Meeting, another occasion when the skies opened up, a storm came, and God scattered young men across the world.
We figured all this out eventually, and we could only shake our heads.
I would never suggest that Katrina, with all its death and devastation, was all about us. I still grieve for the lives lost and the damage done. But I serve a Romans 8:28 God who uses all things for his glory, tragedies included. He speaks from the whirlwind, and he turns tragedy into triumph.
Chapter 19
Providence
In the wake of a raging storm, we sat in the darkened home of Kandi’s parents and checked in with our friends by phone—wondering when we’d be able to recharge these mobile phones; wondering if life would ever be normal again.
Rob Wilton, one of my closest friends, was with his parents in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He told us there was no power problem in the Carolinas, and there was plenty of room. “I talked to Dad,” he said. “He wants me to tell you and Kandi to pack your things and come live here in South Carolina.”
It seemed like a big step, even from our reduced circumstances. We were two Louisiana natives who were now homeless, and Spartanburg was more than six hundred miles away. But we prayed about it and decided this was what God wanted us to do. On our sixth day in Denham Springs, we repacked the suitcase, put gas in the car, and headed for the East Coast.
On the road there were buses and vans packed with shell-shocked people who had lost everything and now depended upon the kindness of strangers. They peered out the windows of their vehicles, their lives now reduced to open questions. Kandi and I prayed for them, asking God to move the hearts of his people in response.
The word in the Bible is diaspora—the dispersion of people outward, in every direction, due to crisis. The population of Louisiana decreased by 300,000 after the storm. Some of the people came back during the following months and years; many never did. They went to Texas or Georgia, Arkansas or Florida, and churches everywhere opened their doors to the displaced. People created new lives for themselves.
Our fellow seminary students, as well as the professors, were spread in every direction, too. But Dr. Kelley and the staff responded beautifully, moving many of the classes to the Internet and extension centers. Eighty-five percent of the students moved seamlessly to online classes or plugged in at a seminary extension center. Within weeks, churches were sending people to clean up the campus and prepare it for the
