Thoughts on Katrina

The Spiritual Lessons of Katrina:
by Rick Joyner // September 8, 2005

The most common question I have been asked about this tragedy is, �Is this storm judgment from God?� Without question the answer to this is �yes,� but it is very important that we understand why it is.

Why did this storm have to come and hit the places that it did? We need to understand a couple of basic things about God�s judgment. First, God�s judgment does not necessarily mean condemnation, but it is also evidence of His love. That may seem very hard to see in this situation now, but it will be obvious later.

It is because God�s judgment is evidence of His love that we are told in I Peter 4:17, �For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God…� The Lord judges and disciplines His people because He loves them. Katrina is actually evidence of God�s love for America and the Gulf Coast, for which He has a special purpose. Before we address this in a bit more detail, consider the following from Hebrews 12:7-13, which is especially applicable regarding for Hurricane Katrina:

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

The Gulf Coast region has a major purpose�one of the greatest revivals in our nation�s history is going to break out in that area and will result in the salvation of many souls for every one that has been lost by this disaster. The recent Pensacola Revival was just a small beginning and forerunner for what is coming.

Some of God�s great churches and people are presently in that area, and they will arise stronger than ever from this storm. However, much of that region was sinking deeper and deeper into a depravity and darkness, which if it had been allowed to continue, the Lord would have had to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. It was getting that bad.

The �Day of Decadence� that had been planned for New Orleans last week was still celebrated by about two dozen people, but it had been planned for tens of thousands. They had intended to flaunt perversion by performing it openly in the streets of New Orleans as honored guests of the city. The toxic flood waters in that city reflected what it had become spiritually. This toxic water is now being dumped right into the Mississippi, from which it will flow right into the Gulf of Mexico, doing terrible damage to the environment far beyond that city, which is a good reflection of the damage that this city was doing to many.

God has something better planned for that region, but the price paid for this tragedy will end up being higher than anyone has yet been willing to say publicly. We must learn this lesson so that we do not have to pay it again. We also need to start praying now for other regions of the country which have fallen to great depravity, that they would repent so the coming judgment already assigned to them will not have to be as devastating. Presently what will be coming to other parts of the country will be worse than Katrina.

Katrina means �to clean� or �to purify,� which is exactly what the end result of that storm will be. It was sent to begin cleaning up an important region of the country that has an important destiny. It can be rebuilt and be much better than before, spiritually, and in the natural.

There is a saying that �If you do not change your direction you will end up where you are headed.� The end result of Katrina will be to radically change the spiritual direction of that region, and it will be something far better than it was before. It was a severe discipline, but it had to be. If there is not repentance, the region will be hit again and New Orleans will not be rebuilt.”