Super Tuesday February 5th

On Super Tuesday of this month, (February 5th) citizens of this great Union attempted to pull together their collective will from across 24 different states to determine who should represent their individual political party for the Presidential General Election that will take place this November.
Super Tuesday news filled the airwaves with strategies and exit polls as voters went to the polls to cast their choice for their party’s nomination. News commentators and their guest panels were all up in the air as interviews with the candidates, their discussions about who was a spoiler, who appeared to be the real front runner, and which party had a candidate that could win against the other. Yes, the air was filled on Super Tuesday with political tornados. The winds were blowing strong and it seemed there was no care in the world about whom those tornado winds would hit or destroy. Actually, with this presidential election process it seems like that this is exactly what folks are about. We’ve got winds blustering about which candidates are real conservatives, liberal and what each should look like should look like should you spot one.
All of this was true until about 7:30 p.m. when the real air began spinning in the paths of so many. Its unpredicted arrival left no time for a television break or message from commentators who would be back with the rest of their stories. The winds of change and the platforms of rain, hail, wind and lightning announced their own positions as tornados began to touch ground in Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. The real story was the unannounced arrival of life altering winds. No longer just political storms brewing, but rather real tornados on the ground where we walk and talk. Many were left, literally, running for cover while others could only witness the destruction.
I made a call on Super Tuesday because of the storms to Paducah to check on my family living there but I didn’t even think about my friend Rev. William Zik, his wife Brittany and young son, Liam who lives in Central City, KY. I didn’t think about him until the next morning when William called me and said, “Where are you and what are you doing?” After telling me that his father, Bob and brother, Joshua were there, he asked a second time,” Where are you?” I knew where I needed to be. I was in the car and on my way.
At the first of his call, William said he was in Owensboro. William has been the Minister to Youth at First Baptist Church Central City, KY for the past three years and he had just accepted a new position with the Macedonia Baptist Church where he will be the Minister to Students. There was no surprise until he said, “We lost everything last night. It hit us around 8:00 p.m.”
It was then I thought, “What was I thinking?” I had not even called him. I had not even thought about Central City. But, when I finally arrived and I heard William and Brittany’s story, I knew I had much to be thinking about now. I thought of God’s outspread hand of protection. For the Zik family it began as just another storm, but with the warnings going off they finally decided to just go downstairs. They stayed there for awhile until the winds didn’t seem to be sounding anymore and the storm seemed to have passed. It was then, as William walked out of the basement and opened the door that he heard a sound of a mighty rushing wind like he had never heard before. He yelled toward his wife, jumped down to his family and they covered themselves with couch cushions. “Within eight seconds it was all over,” William said. “I walked up the stairs of the basement and was looking into the sky, no roof, a few walls standing and everything gone.”
William grew up at Central Baptist Church in Corbin, KY. As a youth he was active in their youth ministries, a part of Gone Fishing, (a unique youth ministry that travel and performs). He was active in mission trips, a dedicated student to the call of Christ in his life. Even while attending the University of Kentucky he maintained his sense of service often making the trip from Lexington back to Corbin to be supportive and to use what he was learning to continue the cause of Christ locally.
He attended Seminary at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and even there continued maintaining his primary Christian relationships while expanding his friendships and ministry contacts. In Corbin he was a big soccer fan and team member of the CHS program. In Central City, he was a coach for the Muhlenberg North High School soccer program. It has been easy to follow his life and the patterns he has developed. He has been consistent no matter the winds that have blown or the storms that have come his way.
Today, a few weeks after the initial hit of 160-mph winds, and what the National Weather Service is classifying as a F3 Tornado, William is standing, exercising faith as his guide. While he has experienced for the first time in his life, the immediate effect of “here today, gone tomorrow,” he is confident of one thing for sure. If God really wants you to move faster than you are going from one ministry location to another, he will get you where he wants you to be. Don’t worry, he’s got enough wind to take care of packing and moving, faster than you could have possible ever imagined.
William shared with me that after the storm, Liam, their son, had been crying and was upset by the disturbance but, in just a few minutes, he was running around in the basement after his ball, playing basketball, even while everything upstairs he had ever known was destroyed. To William it was amazing to just have witnessed Liam and that moment after the storm. To me, it was amazing that God knew he could take everything and anytime. He decided to leave at least two things for Liam through this storm, his father and mother. For me that continues my praises in song through the storms of life, “God is so good!”
Until then