Shortly after I published yesterday’s Daily Article, Camp Mystic confirmed that at least twenty-seven campers and counselors were killed in flash floods last Friday, with ten children and one counselor still missing. As of this morning, the death toll across the area has now climbed to at least 104 people. The massive search continues for survivors and victims.

We are continuing to see tragic stories of those lost, such as Chloe Childress, a recent high school graduate who was set to attend the University of Texas at Austin this fall. She was co-president of her school’s honor council, ran varsity cross country, and founded a club devoted to helping senior citizens. Her death is a devastating loss to all who knew her and to the world she would have served so well.

In other heartbreaking news, the bodies of two sisters from Dallas, ages thirteen and eleven, were found fifteen miles from where their cabin was swept into the river. Their hands were locked together. They are just two of so many stories so grievous that our minds and hearts feel overwhelmed with unspeakable sorrow.

At the same time, heroic stories are emerging as well.

• Emma Foltz of Alexandria, Louisiana, has been a counselor at Camp Mystic for three years and helped evacuate fourteen of her campers to safety.
• Jonathan McComb, who lost his wife and children in a 2015 flood in Wimberly, Texas, is one of hundreds of volunteers helping search for victims.
• Petty Officer Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard swimmer, rescued 165 people at Camp Mystic.

So, here’s the question: If they did all they could do to rescue victims, why didn’t our omnipotent God do all his power enables him to do to prevent this tragedy from happening?

“Deceive yourself no longer”

The Bible says of our Lord, “You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills” (Psalm 104:10). Not only does God make the waters, but he can still control them today. The Savior who calmed the stormy Sea of Galilee could have done the same on the Guadalupe River last Friday (Mark 4:39).

Christians believe our Father to be all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. When tragedy strikes, we need ways to trust him when we don’t understand his ways.

Here’s what we must not do: we must not settle for easy answers to innocent suffering. They are not only the wrong answers—they are the opposite of the hope we need today.

Secularists who consider faith in God irrelevant or outdated will obviously dismiss the question. Others will reject Christianity or deny God’s omniscience or his omnipotence.

However, in the face of tragedy, most of us do not question God’s existence, knowledge, or power, so we are left to question his love.

We love people enough to do all we can to help them, especially at times like this. If God does not follow suit, it must be because he does not love them enough to do so—or so we fear. We would never say this out loud, but it is the whispered doubt at the back of our grieving hearts.

I have often quoted C. S. Lewis’s response to the death of his wife from cancer:

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

Three pathways to faith

If we deny God’s love, power, or knowledge, we “solve” our problem by creating a greater problem. Rather than settling for easy answers that offer no hope, let’s consider three pathways to faith today.

The first is rational:

• If God is the Supreme Being (cf. Revelation 4:8), circumstances cannot make him less or more than he is; in either case, he would no longer be unchangingly supreme (Malachi 3:6). Therefore, nothing that happened last Friday can make him any less the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent King of the universe.
• If we are finite and fallen, our minds by definition cannot understand his mind and ways (Isaiah 55:8–9).
• Because he is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, his character requires him to redeem all he allows (cf. Romans 8:28). We may never understand such redemption on this side of eternity, but one day we will “fully know” what we only know in part today (1 Corinthians 13:12).
• If we allow the question of innocent suffering to drive us from God, we turn from the Source we need when we need him most. The greater our pain, the more we need our Great Physician.

The second is practical: The Bible does not always tell us all we want to know, but it does tell us what we need to know. For those who are suffering, understanding why last Friday’s tragedy occurred may be less relevant than responding to it in practical ways. By praying for them and helping financially and in other ways, we become an instrument of the grace they need. And the more we serve God, the closer we draw to him and find the hope and help of his Spirit.

The third is intuitive: All relationships require a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. If we choose to believe that God is who we hope him to be and trust him with our questions, doubts, and pain, we experience his presence in such a transforming way that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

(For more, please see the podcast I recorded yesterday with Dr. Mark Turman, “Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?”)

“Beauty for brokenness, hope for despair”

Let’s close with this: Many of you have your own stories of unexplained suffering, as do I. If you have chosen to continue believing in the God who believes in you, you can now “comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

If you live where the floods have devastated so many, you know your mission field. If you do not, you nonetheless know someone who needs the sustaining grace you have experienced. You can now be the hands and feet of Jesus in the broken world he died to save.

The British songwriter Graham Kendrick prayed:

Beauty for brokenness
Hope for despair
Lord, in your suffering world
This is our prayer
Bread for the children
Justice, joy, peace
Sunrise to sunset
Your kingdom increase!

Will you help answer his prayer today?

Quote for the day:

“Peace isn’t a place to arrive at but a person to abide in.” —Ann Voskamp

Our latest website resources:

• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?
• Why Michael Madsen’s death gave me pause: A reflection on simplification in life and preparation for eternity
• “Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence
• Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan explain the uniqueness of America
• One thing church members have never asked me to do

Denison Forum

My family and I visited Alcatraz Island off the California coast a number of years ago while on vacation. One of the reasons the prison there was considered impervious to escape was that the guards told inmates that the waters surrounding the island were filled with man-eating sharks. (This turns out not to be true, but that’s another story.)

Here we find an example of the purported power of deterrence.

Another is “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention center built on an airstrip in the Florida Everglades. The center opened this week and was toured by President Trump. The $450 million, one-thousand-bed facility of trailers and tents is the largest of its kind.

Surrounded by the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park, the facility is almost dead center between the east and west coasts of Florida. The Trump administration sees the surrounding wildlife, including alligators and pythons, as a natural barrier stopping migrants from being able to escape.

The nearly twenty-five-thousand-acre site is not pristine wetlands—it’s a one-runway airplane facility called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. Environmentalists nonetheless oppose the project because of alleged impacts on wildlife such as the endangered Florida panther. Immigration advocates and Democrats similarly oppose Alligator Alcatraz because they claim it is deliberately cruel to detainees.

When deterrence doesn’t work

Deterrence is just one way societies attempt to prevent crime and respond to criminals. The others:

• Retribution: repaying a person’s bad deeds in kind
• Incapacitation: incarcerating them
• Rehabilitation: helping them to change.

Criminologists say deterrence is ineffective because most people don’t expect to be caught if they break the law, and don’t know what their punishment will be if they are caught. This, however, would not seem to be a problem with Alligator Alcatraz—the detainees are already “caught” and know the punishment, in the form of alligators and snakes, if they try to escape.

The swamp around the center would seem to function like a moat around a castle, but in reverse—rather than keeping people out, it is intended to keep people in.

Whatever comes of the Florida detention center, we can focus on a spiritual principle that transcends this debate and applies to all of us, all of the time.

Termites of the soul

The Bible emphatically teaches that “all wrongdoing is sin” (1 John 5:17) and that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15) As Paul famously warned, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) If a lost person does not repent of their sin and turn to Christ as Savior, this death becomes eternal. (Revelation 20:15)

Like alligators and snakes we do not see until they attack, the consequences of sin are unseen until they manifest themselves in our lives. They are like termites that crawl into houses from the soil and damage them from within. By the time their presence is visible, the consequences are devastating.

Or consider cancer as another analogy: it always starts small and grows, eventually manifesting as tumors and otherwise disrupting our bodies. By that time, the disease is already far progressed.

This is why the old maxim bears repeating: Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

However, convincing a secularized culture that there are alligators and snakes waiting for their next sin is a tall order. Many do not believe “sin” exists to begin with. Others believe the lie that its consequences will not apply to them until they do. And then it is often too late to avoid the pain they inevitably bring.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God?

There was a day when preachers could warn sinners of their sins and gain a hearing. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was one of the most powerful and persuasive sermons of the colonial era, in large part because Jonathan Edwards’ hearers believed both in sins and in an angry God who would punish them.

Today, such talk is dismissed as outdated, irrelevant, judgmental, and even dangerous to our “post-truth” culture.

How then are Bible-believing Christians to help our broken society avoid the swamps that surround our souls?

Paul taught, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) Making things worse, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

This is why “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Consequently, “praying at all times in the Spirit” is vital. (v. 18, my emphasis) “In the Spirit” means “in connection with the Spirit” or under his leading.

He knows the spiritual condition of the person for whom we are praying far better than we can. He knows what they need to hear, see, feel, and experience to be led from the deception of sin to the joy of salvation. He is already working on their hearts right now, convicting them of sin and seeking to draw them to Christ. (cf. John 16:8)

No greater gift we can give

Our job is to pray for them as the Spirit leads us, then be ready to answer our prayers as he leads.

We are not on trial, seeking to win a verdict for ourselves. Rather, Jesus is on trial, and we are called by the Spirit to the witness stand to testify as he directs us. He alone can win the trial and the soul of the “jury.”

Our job is to be faithful and obedient.

So, let me ask you to pray right now by name for someone who, to your knowledge, is spiritually lost. Pray for the Spirit to lead your prayers, then intercede as you sense his direction. Ask him to use you to answer your prayers in any way he wishes.

And stay ready to be used.

You and I cannot give our lost friends a greater gift than to pray and work for their eternal salvation.

If they only knew the spiritual alligators and snakes threatening their souls, wouldn’t they agree?

Denison Forum

Is national pride a problem?

Detailing the degree to which Americans are less proud to be American has become something of an annual tradition around this time of year. And in keeping with that trend, a recent poll found that a record-low 58 percent of US adults are either extremely (41 percent) or very (17 percent) proud to be American.

While those numbers represent a fairly significant drop, even from recent years, the downward trajectory doesn’t change the fact that nearly four out of five Americans are at least moderately proud to be a citizen of this country. Moreover, nine out of ten hold at least some measure of pride in that status. When we think about the state of our culture, it would be a mistake to let the 10 percent who hold no such pride outweigh the 90 percent who do.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that younger generations tend to be quite a bit more moderate in their pride for the nation than their elders.

As the Gallop report notes, “These changes have occurred mostly over the past decade, and have done so amid greater pessimism about the economic prospects for young people, widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, greater ideological divides between parties, unfavorable images of both parties, and intense rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations.”

In short, fear and anger have become the default setting for far too many people, and it makes sense that those without a longer history of what it’s like to live in America would be more impacted by those feelings.

It may be tempting to dismiss many of these concerns, but the dissatisfaction points to some very real problems in our country. I would argue that the good still far outweighs the bad, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook these issues. As I wrote when discussing this trend a few years ago:

America’s flaws should not blind us to the blessings that come from living here. At the same time, those blessings should not blind us to the work that still needs to be done.

So, with that context in mind, how should we see the decline in national pride among many Americans? And is the trend a problem to correct or a symptom of something more?

For an answer, let’s look back to a time when national pride wasn’t a concern because there wasn’t yet a nation to be proud of.

“An inverted American revolution”

One of the most enduring images from America’s founding is the woodcarving of a snake chopped up into eight pieces with the caption “JOIN, or DIE.” Benjamin Franklin originally used the picture in 1754 to try to unite the colonies in the buildup to the French and Indian War.

Franklin hoped it would inspire them to join together in creating a united government—one still under the authority of the British at that point—to face a threat none of them could defeat on their own. While he would have to wait about twenty years to see that desire become a reality, the image played a crucial role in uniting the colonies against England and in securing the independence we celebrate today.

However, our need for such unity is just as real now as it was nearly 250 years ago.

As Bari Weiss notes:

Today there are those who tell us that we are not, in fact, a single people, but rather disparate tribes whose identities put us at odds with one another forever. They’ve divided us not into colonies or states or physical territories, but into identity groups and political factions vying for power and control . . . The effect of these illiberal ideologies is the same: They have sliced up the snake once more. From the one: many. An inverted American revolution.

Just as at our nation’s founding, each of us has a role to play in deciding whether America will be one or many. And, as Christians, we are uniquely positioned to help ensure it’s the former rather than the latter.

Christian or American?

As citizens of heaven before we’re citizens of America—or any other nation for that matter—our perspective on the culture and the country should be filtered through the lens of God’s word. As a result, where America lines up with Scripture, we can and should be proud to be Americans. Where it has deviated from God’s truth, we should be ready and willing to hold it accountable.

Moreover, our national pride doesn’t have to waver based on how well the country is doing because our identity as individuals is based first and foremost on our relationship with the Lord. It gets a lot easier to see America objectively and to recognize its faults without losing sight of its blessings when being an American is not the foundation of who we are.

That is a rare gift we can share with the rest of this nation, but only if that’s truly how we live.

So, as you celebrate America’s independence today, do you do so as a Christian living in America or as an American who happens to be a Christian?

Both our faith and our nation are important parts of who we are and how God has called us to serve him. But only one of those identities can be the bedrock of our lives.

Which are you today?

Quote of the day:

“We are a sometimes great, sometimes loathsome, eternally imperfect nation built on a set of ideas that are so fundamentally superior to anything else civilization has come up with that they’ve been copied and pasted across the globe.” —Isaac Saul (you can read the full article from which this quote comes here)

Our latest website resources:

• House passes the “One Big Beautiful Bill”
• “Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence
• One thing church members have never asked me to do
• Big Beautiful Bill, SCOTUS reshapes power, Diddy trial update & a July 4th poem | CB Ep. 26
• Sean “Diddy” Combs verdict is in

Denison Forum