On Rockets and Spirits

The following article was posted in the Vero Beach Press Journal on Monday of this past week:

"Hurricane Makes Explosive Discovery
Monday, October 04, 2004

Residents of a Florida coastal community found something interesting in the wake of Hurricane Jeanne - a World War II-era missile, complete with live warhead, buried under a driveway.
"We have seen other bombs and depth charges wash up before, but that is unusual to find it underneath the driveway," Pat Schulke, who lives across the street in an unincorporated part of Indian River County, told the Vero Beach Press Journal.

The pounding waves generated by Jeanne washed away most of the beachfront driveway, revealing several feet of a rocket poking out of the sand, tail fins and all.

"[Bombs] have washed up in the past, but not usually found within a community," said Detective Joe Flescher from the county sheriff's office.


Experts from Patrick Air Force Base up the coast identified the rocket as a "Tiny Tim," a 10-foot-long air-to-ground missile carrying a 500-pound bomb.

Flescher explained that 60 years ago, the barrier island opposite Vero Beach was a training ground for the U.S. military.

Ordnance disposal personnel from the Air Force base determined the warhead was live, and moved it elsewhere for detonation.

"It sounded like a large firework going off," said Lt. David Dangerfield of the Indian River County Fire-Rescue department, who was about half a mile away. "Dirt shot right up in the air, and I felt a minimum percussion from it. The bomb was live.""

This is what happens in our life when the storms of life come upon us. God uses these storms to pound away at our flesh and at everything else that hampers us in our walk with Him. The waves and the wind and the surf strip away our pride and our arrogance and our sin until we reach the point where all we can do is trust in Him. It is at that point that the hidden power of God is made manifest in our life, just as the bomb lay hidden for years under a beach-side driveway was exposed following a storm. As the Word of God says, the Holy Spirit inside of us is like dunamis -- dynamite -- power. We just need to reach the point where we allow His power to manifest through us.