Religion: Anointed Thoughts

Some Spills Only God Can Clean Up

by Rev. Roxanne Cardenas, M.Div

Fish fighting to come to the surface while struggling for air. Pelicans that can not spread their wings to fly. Smaller birds literally cooking in the thick crude. Fishermen who can not fish. Crab boats that can no longer coast the waters casting their metal pods while hoping for a life changing catch.

The media has been featuring these and other horrific scenes from the last week from the site of the largest oil spill in history.

There has been incessant fighting about who is to blame for the natural disaster that is impacting entire industries and threatening to ended the multi-generational livelihood of countless families of all cultures.

The president, who neither produced the oil nor spilled it, is being hammered by people who have endless complaints but no viable solutions. Every day that the oil plumes from the sea floor uncontrolled is another day of indeterminable damage done to the living creatures both on water and on land.

What has been interesting to me is that there has not been a call for prayer. At the end of the day, God controls the crude oil that was tapped into and unfortunately now being spilled at an alarming rate into the water. God Himself can cut the flow of oil off and do what “experts” have repeatedly failed to do. Some spills only God can clean up.

In the gulf and in our lives we have to come to the conclusion that there are some issues, some problems, some situation, some people and some trials that are bigger than we are. No matter how much dispersant they use in the ocean they will never soak up all of the oil that was spilled.

There is no hope that the land will be unscathed and returned to 100% normality. We unlike the ocean have a solution to sin that is more powerful than any dispersant created by man. We have the blood of Jesus. Jesus is able to wash away our sin and leave us better than we were before our “spill.”

So often, we like those who are working toward a solution in the gulf are so focused on blame, anger and finger pointing that we fail to realize that only God can fix the mess – no matter whose fault it was for creating it.
This week, turn your spills over to God. You have a responsibility to work to repair as much as you can, yet you also have to spend time trying to assure it will not happen again while releasing the entire situation to the Father. A spill exposes flaws in the reaction that could have been prevented with proaction.

Monday:  Matthew 7:13-14

Tuesday: Psalm 51:1-9

Wednesday: Psalm 51: 10-19

Thursday: Luke 8: 16-18

Friday: Malachi 1:6-14

Saturday: 2 Kings 19

Sunday: Head to Church