In South Miami after the disaster that Hurricane Andrew produced, the U.S. Military had a new mission. Accustomed to being sent out on missions to “search and attack,” the troops were deployed under new orders: “Find and beseech!”
They were sent into the midst of chaos, into miles of demolished housing with all utilities destroyed. Communities were so devastated that there was little to distinguish one street from another. All looked the same - nothing in sight but mounds of debris.
Into this disorder the military moved, setting up field kitchens and hospitals and shelter tents, establishing distribution centers for the tons of supplies that were being rushed to the stricken area. Everything was soon ready to give help to the survivors, but where were they?
While tents waited, empty, thousands upon thousands (an estimated 250,000 were made homeless by the storm) of people - men, women, and children -huddled in the wreckage of their homes, hungry and miserable. Frequent heavy rain showers and swarms of mosquitoes made life even more unbearable.
Help was near, but with no electricity and dead batteries in radios it was difficult to get the news out. Sometimes people only two blocks away did not know of relief efforts.
Something more was necessary, hence the new mission: “Find and beseech.” Find the people and beseech them to leave their crumbling houses or demolished mobile homes and come where there was food and shelter, help and compassion.
One spokesman for the military said, “They will go out into each block and neighborhood so they can put their arms around people and tell them it’s OK.”
So the military went out door-to-door (or “void-to-void”!) to find and persuade people to come to shelter, to dry beds and hot showers and three meals a day - to safety at last.
“Find - and beseech” - and the tents were filled.
It is so like what the Lord Jesus is doing today. He said, The Son of man [Jesus] is come to seek and to save. He has a home prepared, a home of eternal safety, and He invites - no, He beseeches - all to come: Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
The Army and National Guard had orders to go out and find the needy and suffering ones and bring them to the centers where food was being provided. God too has a feast ready, and His servants have been sent out with invitations into the highways and hedges. There are people hurrying along on the highway with a goal in view and apparently the ability and means to attain it; others seem to be trapped in the hedges, wrapped around with all the trials and perplexities of modern life and unable to make any progress. But the invitation is to all, and yet there is room.
One day God’s house will be filled, and the door to heaven will be shut forever.
“Come, for angel hosts are musing
O’er this sight so strangely sad,
God beseeching, man refusing
To be made forever glad!”
Vvv