Have you ever stopped to consider how much of your family’s budget goes toward insurance costs? We have health insurance, life insurance, vehicle insurance, trip insurance, ticket insurance, pet insurance, phone insurance, and the list goes on. This doesn’t even take into account other insurances that people with certain jobs or conditions may need. Just the other day my trucker friend was telling me about how it was time for him to take out another insurance policy for his truck. His current company had quoted him 2800! He is able to get a Truck insurance quote in minutes thanks to comparison sites but it’s still a lot of money for him to be spending on top of his other insurance policies. As someone who has had sick children, a house fire and a few car accidents, I’m a fan of insurance, but what does it say about us? Where did all of this begin?
After the great fire of London, a preacher’s son named Nicholas Bourbon began to amas great wealth. Remembering back to all that was lost during the great fire of London, Bourbon wanted to make sure that he, and others, were protected against that type of devastation in the future, and so the world’s first official insurance company was born, “The Insurance Office.” This first, gave way to another first, fire brigades, or what we now know as fire departments. These original fire brigades weren’t meant to save lives as much as they were created by “The Insurance Office” to protect material investments.
We understand that this uncertain, tragic and often unsafe world is not yet how Jesus intends. Our impulse is to foster certainty and safety, yet even in the midst of our great advances we are still, as it is with the recent outbreak of Covid-19, very aware of both the seen and the unseen dangers that we cannot seem to completely insulate and isolate ourselves from. This is why so many will go for life insurance, as well as check out health insurance jacksonville fl companies, for example, so that people can be prepared in these uncertain times.
My family often wants to know and hear me say everything is going to be okay, but if we are honest, we know everything often is not going to be okay in one since, a more temporal since. God, in the midst of world altering calamities for His people said in Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Tragedy and loss makes us answer the question, “Who is my God?” It’s times like these that we must “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5)” because as hard as it may seem, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28)” Our God loves and cares for us and has openly beckons us to come to Him with all the anxieties that have shaken us. (1 Peter 5:7), and trust Him when He says “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8:18)”
I bet those who rushed to help with the great fire of London, as they passed one bucket of water after the next, never could have imagined the great and global good that would come from such a tragedy, yet it did.