On
the verge of disaster, I read today on Yahoo News that in 1961 there was
disaster in the making. The incident happened when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs
were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina, after a B-52 bomber
broke up in midair. The devastation from this disaster would stilling be being
felt 52 years later.
Ok,
for those that don’t know I’m an Air Force brat! My father was a Tech Sargent
and worked in Civil Engineers. One area
of importance for him was to make sure the runway was always open in all seasons
for the B-52 bombers to take off. As
kids, there were on-going debates as to whether or not nuclear bombs were on
the base. The line we were always handed was: we can neither deny nor
acknowledge their presence.
I
grew up living my life as any child playing in the backyard, going to school,
and attending church. Later in life I lived 3 miles from a nuclear power plant.
You may ask what does this have to do with things of importance. It has to do
with how we live our lives.
Do
we live in fear that the end is coming, that the doom day theory/conspiracy is
going to happen. I remember in 1999/2000 when the Y2K bug was being talked
about and many people were panicking that the entire computer systems were going
to shut down. Every day our lives are in constant danger, when we ride in a
car, fly in a plane; turn on the gas in our house, cross the street, and
thousands of other situations.
Three
things I learned from my dad growing up under the influence of an Air Force that
possibility had nuclear bombs. Dad applied them to life, even after he retired.
- God is in control of the situation and hasn’t required your help or mine to handle world problems.
- God has a time frame for your life; live it serving him and let him worry about the future; because handling the present is hard enough for us.
- The hope and future is in your personal relationship with God, not in some Air Force pilot or tech at a power plant. It is what God in his Sovereign wisdom thinks is best, not yours.
God
was in control of the 1961 bomb that almost exploded just like he remains in control
of every situation we face. The only important question is: If the bomb
exploded, how many people would have been ready to meet Christ? With the threat
of terrorist attacks, the possibility of major natural disasters, or simple
accident’s within our own home, the question is still the same: Are we ready to
meet Jesus?
