The morning dawned bright and beautiful the day fellow missionary Dave Carney and I made our way west towards Mississippi on Interstate 10. Just a few days earlier the rampaging, whirling storm Katrina had left a swath of houses, businesses and churches in utter ruin. The whelm of grief and despair at the loss of homes, jobs, family and friends was evident as many were evacuated to sundry places. As we entered the area where Katrina wreaked her heaviest devastation, our hearts were deeply moved as we began to envision the obliteration of an entire seacoast, homes and businesses demolished by the thousands. Was this the voice of God? Was he speaking to America?

It was Job, whom the Scriptures describe as “perfect and upright” and “the greatest of all the men of the east,” who suffered the loss of all his earthly possessions. He even lost his children when “there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the (eldest brother’s) house.” Yet in all of this it was “out of the whirlwind” that the Lord answered Job! He questioned who could “stay (pour out) the bottles of heaven,” and “send lightnings that they may go.” It was Elihu who reminded Job that the clouds are “turned round about by his counsels: that they may do whatsoever he commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth. He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.” He also reminded Job that “out of the south cometh the whirlwind” and “the great rain of his strength.”

The Psalmist assures us that “by his power he brought in the south wind,” He “bringeth the wind out of his treasuries,” and “stormy wind fulfilling his word.” The prophet Nahum enjoined us that “the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” Even the disciples were amazed at the simple carpenter from Galilee who “commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”

Lessons from a hurricane? Oh, yes! Those whirling clouds are but the dust of His feet. And if they are the dust of His feet, then God is most certainly above that tapestry of clouds! Indeed, God questioned whether Job had the ability, as does God, to “lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?” Those torrential rains are the bottles of heaven poured out to quench the parched earth. He “send(s) lightnings that they may go” wherever his hand directs, even to the Gulf Coast. After God questioned Job’s knowledge of creation and his lack of ability to exercise control over any of it, Job could only reply, “I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” Job held his tongue when he recognized the omniscient and sovereign Jehovah of heaven. When God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, he listened! Are we listening? Have we heard the voice of God in the whirlwind?