Isaac's Storm

Whenever my mother-in-law is in town, she always comes up with field trips for us. This year, she took us to the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, a vacation mansion built in 1902 by Henry Flagler, the man who helped pioneer Florida with his railroad and hotels. Visiting these old homes does make you feel like you are going back in time, and we did learn about "The Gilded Age" and the hubris of that era. While we were there, she graciously bought us books, and the one she got me was a winner. The minute I started it, I wanted to go lock myself in some room and read undisturbed until I was finished. (I tried, but my conscience made me come out.)

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson was thrilling reading. The book is a well-written, extremely well-researched account of the deadly hurricane that caught Galveston, Texas, by surprise in 1900, killing more than 8,000 people. Larson describes the bland indifference of so many to the pending storm, and contrasts that with the terror, awe and absolute devastation its arrival actually brings.

The story focuses on meteorologist Isaac Cline, arrogant but still a sympathetic character because of his diligence and devotion to principles. From the start, Larson uses minute details to capture the imagination. He describes Isaac as "loyal, a believer in dignity, honor and effort. He taught Sunday School. He paid cash, a fact noted in a ... small red book... [which] listed nearly all Galveston's established citizens..., basing this appraisal on secret reports filed anonymously by friends and enemies."

These tidbits of information, delivered on the first page of the first chapter, let the reader know what he will be getting in this book: as detailed and honest an account as the author could dig up from a variety of often unusual sources. To tell his story, Larson went to the actual telegrams sent from and to the Weather Bureau chief; letters and drafts written by Red Cross founder Clara Barton; personal accounts from storm survivors; and photographs of the nonchalant Texas city before and the indescribable horror after the storm struck.

This thorough research is the strength of this book, yielding so many stories one feels deluged by them. Larson has found startling personal accounts of one of the most deadly hurricanes ever to hit the United States. He tells of stout buildings whose walls slowly wrench apart before horrified eyes, rescuers moving aside bodies of men, women and children with oars to allow their boats to pass, nuns linking orphan children by tying bedsheets to each little arm, only to have the tethers pull the children to their deaths as storm wreckage catches on them.

Central to this story, and well-documented by Larson, is the overblown pride in technology and man's accomplishments that pervaded this era. Isaac Cline, the meteorologist at the heart of this book, fails to recognize the pending storm, largely because he believes firmly in his own opinion that hurricanes are not a real danger for the city of Galveston. He views all the data received through this lens.

The U.S. Weather Bureau has its own expectations, which exacerbate Cline's propensity to underplay the storm. Just before the 1900 hurricane, the U.S. Weather Bureau had banned telegrams from Cuban meterologists because they believed the U.S. forecasts to be superior. They refused to take seriously any of the information that came out of Cuba about this storm, which had hit that country before heading for Texas. U.S. officials even refused to call it a hurricane, labeling the Cuban reports "alarmist". Basing their reports solely on their expectations, the U.S. Weather Bureau stated without qualification that the storm was headed to the Florida Keys and then out to the Atlantic. This "guess, armored in the certainty of the age, provided a framework into which ... forecasters eagerly fitted other incoming observations," Larson writes.

Later, these prideful man who had created their own reality, could not see the truth even after Galveston was under water and thousands of bodies floated through the streets. Rather than believe that the confidently worded reports had been, in fact, wrong, they simply assumed that the hurricane that hit Galveston was a second storm, that had formed quickly somehow in the Gulf. "That cyclone is the same one which passed over Cuba," a Cuban forecaster slowly told a U.S. Weather official in a confrontation shortly after the event. "No, sir," [the U.S. weather official] snapped. "It cannot be; no cyclone ever can move from Florida to Galveston."

This book rings with the warning to be humble and teachable, especially in the face of great storms (which seem to be approaching our family.) But more than that, the mighty power of this hurricane, so underestimated by men, reminds me to both reverence and hope in the Lord who controls all of that power and more. All of that might is working for our good in everything that happens. He promises that.


The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalm 147:11)

Contending For Our All

I listened to this John Piper biographical message on Athanasius and was struck by how relevant it is for situations we are praying for right now, including our own efforts to educate and equip our own children.


What may we learn about the sacred calling of controversy from the life of Athanasius?...

*Joyful courage is the calling of a faithful shepherd [and every Christian].
...Athanasius contra mundum should inspire every pastor [and every Christian] to stand his ground meekly and humbly and courageously whenever a biblical truth is at stake. But be sure that you always outrejoice your adversaries. If something is worth fighting for, it is worth rejoicing over. And the joy is essential in the battle, for nothing is worth fighting for that will not increase our everlasting joy in God....

*Loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ.
...Athanasius would have grieved over sentences like, " It is Christ who unites us, it is doctrine that divides." And sentences like "We should ask, Whom do you trust?, rather than what do you believe?" He would have grieved because he knew this was the very tactic used by the Arian bishops to cover the councils with fog so that the word Christ could mean anything. Those who talk like this -- "Christ unites, doctrine divides" -- have simply replaced propositions about Christ with the word Christ. It carries no meaning until one says something about Him. ... This leads to a related lesson...

*The truth of biblical language must be vigorously protected with non-biblical language.

Bible language can be used to affirm falsehood. ... Over the years, I have seen the misuse of the Bible especially in liberally minded baptistic and pietistic traditions. They use the slogan, "the Bible is our only creed," but in refusing to let explanatory, confessional language clarify what the Bible means, the slogan can be used as a cloak to conceal the fact that Bible language is being used to affirm what is not biblical. ... R.P.C. Hanson explained the process like this: "Theologians of the Christian Church were slowly driven to a realization that the deepest questions which face Christianity cannot be answered in purely biblical language, because the questions are about the meaning of biblical language itself. The Arians railed against the unbiblical language being forced on them. They tried to seize the biblical high ground and claim to be truly biblical people -- the pietists, the simple Bible-believers -- because they wanted to stay with biblical language only -- and by it smuggle in their non-biblical meanings. ...

* Pastors [and parents] should not aim to preach [and teach] only in categories of thought that can be readily understood by this generation. Rather we should also aim at creating biblical categories of thought that are not present.

...Some of the most crucial and precious truths of the Scripture are counterintuitive to the fallen mind. They don't fit easily into our sin-soaked heads. .. But the Bible will not let its message be fitted into the categories we bring with our fallen, finite minds. It presses us relentlessly to create new categories of thought to contain the mysteries of the Gospel. ... If you want to grow a church, the temptation is to give the people what they already have categories to understand and enjoy. But once that church is grown, it thinks so much like the world that the difference is not decisive. The radical, biblical Gospel is blunted, and the glory of Christ is obscured.... From the very beginning, we are to be speaking to them God-centered, Christ-exalting truths that shatter fallen, human categories of thought...we must labor to create categories like these (to mention a few):

--God rules the world of bliss and suffering and sin, right down to the roll of a dice and fall of a bird and the driving of the nail into the hand of His Son; yet, though God wills that such sin and suffering exist, He does not sin, but is perfectly holy.

--God governs all the steps of His people, both good and bad, at all times and in all places, yet such that all are accountable before him and will bear the just consequences of His wrath if they do not believe in Christ.

--All are dead in their trespasses and sin and are not morally able to come to Christ because of their rebellion, yet they are responsible to come and will be justly punished if they don't.

-- Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, divine and
human, such that he upheld the world by the word of his power
while living in his mother’s womb.

-- Sin, though committed by a finite person and in the con-
fines of finite time, is nevertheless deserving of an infinitely long
punishment because it is a sin against an infinitely worthy God.

-- The death of the one God-man, Jesus Christ, so displayed
and glorified the righteousness of God that God is not unrighteous
to declare righteous ungodly people who simply believe in Christ.

... These kinds of mind-boggling, category-shattering truths demand our best thought and most creative labors. We must aim to speak them in a way that, by the power of God's Word and Spirit, a place for them would be created in the minds of those who hear. We must not preach only in the categories that are already present in the listeners' fallen minds, or we will betray the Gospel and conceal the glory of God.

--John Piper, Contending for Our All

Leaning with Joy

The right context for discussing guidance is one of confidence in the God who will not let us ruin our souls. Our concern, therefore, in this discussion should be more for His glory than for our security -- for that is already taken care of. And our self-distrust, while keeping us humble, must not cloud the joy with which we lean on the Lord Protector -- our faithful covenant God.

Captain of Israel's host and Guide Of all who seek the land above, Beneath Thy shadow we abide, The cloud of Thy Protecting love; Our strength, Thy grace; our rule, Thy Word; Our end, the glory of the Lord.

-- From Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Blessed and Wretched

"...That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth:
He seemed to attract 'such awful people.' That is what people still object to,
and always will. Do you not see why? Christ said, 'Blessed are the poor'....
If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good
upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is...
"It is very different for the nasty people -- the little, low, timid,
warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced
people. If they make any attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double
quick time, that they need help. It is Christ or nothing for them. It is
taking up the cross and following -- or else despair. They are the lost sheep;
He came specially to find them. They are (in one very real and terrible sense)
the 'poor': He blessed them. They are the 'awful set' He goes about with --
and, of course, the Pharisees say still, as they said from the first, 'If there
were anything in Christianity, those people would not be Christians.'
"There is either warning or encouragement here for every one of us. If you
are a nice person -- if virtue comes easily to you -- beware! Much is expected
from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are
really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply
being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall
more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more
disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far
above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.
"But if you are a poor creature -- poisoned by a wretched upbringing in
some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels -- saddled, by no
choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion -- nagged day in and
day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends -- do
not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed.
He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you
can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he
will fling it on the scrapheap and give you a new one. And then you may
astonish us all -- not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a
hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be
last.)" -- Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

The Power of Fellowship

Men are mirrors, or "carriers" of Christ to other men. ... That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important. You might say that when two Christians are following Christ together there is not twice as much Christianity as when they are apart, but sixteen times as much. -- C.S. Lewis