I saw on the morning news that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be into hurricane season next week. We live in the Southeast so hurricanes are an issue. In the Midwest tornadoes are on the menu for this time of year, although we get our share of those down here as well. I also saw on this morning\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s local broadcast that Los Angeles suffered another aftershock from Sunday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 4.7 earthquake. I guess that no matter where you live, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a natural disaster of some sort right around the corner.<\/p>\n
Last night I watched a documentary about just how America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s financial meltdown started on Wall Street and spread to Main Street. And how, if you can imagine it, it could have been much, much worse. I guess if a natural disaster doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get us, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll create a man-made one to do the job.<\/p>\n
Scary stuff.<\/p>\n
For the last eight weeks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been writing about \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThriving in Tough Times\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>. I began discussing the issue at 30,000 feet, trying to give you the big picture before we got down to details. I figure that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so adept at creating our own personal \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnatural disasters\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> in daily life that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do ourselves in before the next hurricane, tornado or financial meltdown has the opportunity.<\/p>\n Solving any problem, for me, begins with a look inside and then focusing on the big picture. Once I have those two squared away, I can move on to the details. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I put this series in the following order (just click the link to these previous week at the top of this post to scroll back), covering the big stuff first, and then working my way down to the details.<\/p>\n Week 1: Adopting a truly Christian worldview<\/p>\n Week 2: Putting spiritual priorities ahead of physical priorities<\/p>\n Week 3: Attending to Physical Priorities<\/p>\n Week 4: Living a stewardship lifestyle<\/p>\n Week 5: Pursuing your God ordained purpose<\/p>\n Week 6: Getting out of debt<\/p>\n Week 7: Tempering your faith in world systems<\/p>\n Week 8: Living in community<\/p>\n The turmoil this world is going through isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be over tomorrow. Jesus will return one day and set things right, but he told us himself that great trouble would befall the world before he returns (read Matthew 24 and Mark 13). The only way we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to survive the tough times we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in now and the tougher times to come is by having our priorities right \u00e2\u20ac\u201c big stuff first.<\/p>\n This week, however, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be looking at the short term. In all of our preparation for eternity and for long term spiritual and financial welfare in tough times, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want us to lose sight of being able to survive the next three days. In the same way some folks have never prepared to survive eternity or even their retirement (whatever that<\/em> means these days) a lot of folks aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even prepared to survive three days in the event that their umbilical cord to the grid is temporarily severed.<\/p>\n Natural disasters do that; sometimes man made disasters do it too. Should a disaster, sudden and short, befall you, would you be able to carry on for three days without Starbuck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, the ATM, Edison Electric or the Dish Network? Or would you be praying for the Red Cross truck to set up shop on the curb outside?<\/p>\n Short term disasters happen all the time. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, got caught with their pants down after hurricane Katrina. More than 1,400 people in Louisiana died and hundreds of thousands lost access to their homes or jobs and were separated from family members. For the folks who went through the storm and its aftermath, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what they would define as a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcshort term\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> disaster.<\/p>\n FEMA knows now that a Katrina-like disaster can happen at any time, and they know that it will; they just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know when and where. So they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re prepared \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as prepared as they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to get, anyway. You know their first line of defense? Convincing you<\/em> to be prepared. What they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do what we can folks, but if you want to survive, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re chances are better if you take care of yourselves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comforting.<\/p>\n So when and where is the next natural or man made disaster going to take place? FEMA doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know; neither do I. But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re more regular and widespread than you might think. The president of the United States declared a state of disaster or emergency 377 times between 2000 and 2007. There were 92 declared last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost twice a week; they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting more frequent. And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re spread pretty evenly across the country; unless you live in western Colorado or parts of Nevada (of course your chances of freezing in the Rockies or getting lost in the desert go way up), there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pretty good chance your home will show up on a FEMA map one day.<\/p>\n What to do? Well, the first (and the least) you can do is to prepare yourself and your family for a short term disaster. That means having a plan for where to go (and what to bring and how to pay for it) if you have to leave your home for a short time (evacuate). If evacuation isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possible or it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not called for, do you have a plan for living through that same period of time without the benefit of electric or water utilities? Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make coffee without water \u00e2\u20ac\u201c got a few gallons stashed in the closet? Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t watch the news on TV or listen to the radio without electricity \u00e2\u20ac\u201c got batteries? How about groceries? Do you really think the time to stock up is after<\/em> a natural disaster? If you can get to a grocery store and, by some miracle of grace, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s open and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something on the shelf, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not counting on the ATM to spit out twenties when you put your card in, are you? What makes you think that<\/em> service is going to be up and running \u00e2\u20ac\u201c got some cash just in case?<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not talking about the end of the world (yet), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about something bad that happens somewhere in this country almost twice a week.<\/p>\n I write about being prepared for eternity. I write about being prepared for long term tough times. Are you even prepared for 72 hours without power, water or the grocery store?<\/em> If your life will be turned upside down by a few days without this world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life support pumping into your veins, what does that say about what or Who you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re counting on in the long term? The neighbor you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been trying to convince that peace and hope can only be found in a personal relationship and trust in a God who cares for you and takes care of all of your needs is sure going to be impressed when you run from your house screaming in panic because your Mr. Coffee won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work.<\/p>\n Preparation for the long term is essential. You can be captain of Fort<\/em> Survival<\/em> and still spend eternity in hell. But preparing for the short term is a part of wisdom. There are always plenty of panicked, lost, hurting people during and after a disaster. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re one of them, how can you be of any help? In good times people aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interested in why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lost; in bad times they start listening. It would be a tragedy if all it took was a glass of water to open an opportunity for you to share living water with a thirsty soul and you were fresh out.<\/p>\n Three days. Is that too much to ask?<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n There are plenty of websites with lists detailing what you should have on hand in case of a short term disaster. FEMA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is a good one, and you paid for it so you might as well take a look. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a link to the FEMA site: http:\/\/www.fema.gov\/plan\/index.shtm<\/a>. Make a plan, make a list and start checking it off. In the event of a disaster, when FEMA does finally show up, offer them a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n Next week we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to talk about the purpose behind tough times. Light shines brighter in the dark.<\/p>\n Until then, keep your batteries charged.<\/p>\n Steve Spillman<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thriving in Tough Times Part 9 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Mark 13:8) I saw on the morning news that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be into hurricane season next week. We live in the Southeast so hurricanes are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,458],"tags":[498,494,496,495,493,497,437],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/declarationsmap2000_07.jpg\" "\\"declarationsmap2000_07\\"")
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