My family spent last week in Orange Beach, Alabama for a few days of vacation and some much needed rest & relaxation. Of course we were all concerned about the massive oil spill in the gulf. I had heard that thousands of families had canceled their summer vacation plans and that hotels were near empty and the gulf coast region was experiencing one of their worst summers on record. And I believe the reports were accurate. It was eerie quiet around there and we had no wait in any of the restaurants we visited and the beaches seemed vacant.
We went any way just to get away and our hotel bill was lower because they are practically paying people to come down there and visit. We got down there and saw zero signs of any oil. We walked the beach front every morning and enjoyed God's gift of the ocean waves. As we spent time walking on the shore line, I noticed that there were BP workers out sifting through the sand. Here they were in boots, duct-taped to their long pants and wearing t-shirts and hats and we were walking in bare feet and shorts. So that got me to thinking, "are my feet going to rot off?"
So, I stopped to talk to a few of the workers. This one guy was an electrical contractor who had been layed off from his job. So He got hired by BP to come down and be apart of the oil clean-up project. He was from Terre Haute, IN. I said, "Hey guys...how are you doing? Can I ask, what are you looking for?" Here is what the guy said, "We are looking for nothing...this is all for public relations - just so people will see us out and about trying to do something." "BP had just layed off 250 beach workers the day before" he said. I added, "So what is all the thousands of tractors, bull-dozers, land movers, etc... I saw up the road what is their purpose?" He said, "Same thing" He went on to say "Basically, they are spraying dispersments in the ocean on top of the oil and it is sending the oil to the ocean floor."
I thanked him for a few minutes of his time and caught up to my family and I'm thinking "wow, what a joke." They were looking for NOTHING..it was all a show. They don't really care about the ocean or the fish in it, it's just about not letting that oil get to the coast line because millions of dollars are lost on the economy if people see oil and won't come to the resort communities of the gulf coast.
Before we get too hard on BP...let's remind ourselves that we are lot like that in our spiritual life. We try to disperse sin in our lives to the bottom and we end up living a lie and telling ourselves that everything is OK with us. We pretend to be something we're not. Let me encourage you to let the sin surface to the shore line of your soul and then we can deal with it, give it to God as we ask for His forgiveness. Let's be transparent about who we are!
And Oh by the way...my feet are still attached!
