Celebrities losing their homes in the Los Angeles wildfires

“One day you’re swimming in the pool, and the next it’s all gone.” This is how James Woods, a two-time Oscar nominee and three-time Emmy winner, recounted the destruction of his California home as flames bore down “like an inferno.”

Billy Crystal and his wife Janice lost the house where they had raised their children and grandchildren since 1979. Paris Hilton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Mandy Moore, Mark Hamill, and Maria Shriver were among other celebrities forced to evacuate as out-of-control fires in Los Angeles swept through some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

The largest blaze has consumed nearly twelve thousand acres in Pacific Palisades, a picturesque neighborhood situated between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu and home to many film, television, and music stars. Shriver wrote on X yesterday, “Everything is gone. Our neighborhood, our restaurants. The firefighters have and are doing their best, but this fire is massive and out of control.”

“The Life-Force is a sort of tame God”

Those of us who are not celebrities and do not live in multimillion-dollar mansions might have difficulty feeling empathy for those who are and do. But as I noted in a recent website article, feeling compassion for those in need is a basic attribute of Christian character as we emulate the Son of God who came “to seek and to save the lost,” whoever they are (Luke 19:10).

As I am watching this tragedy unfold, however, another facet of the story seems clear: If the wealthiest and most powerful among us are powerless before the power of nature, what of the rest of us? If people who presumably can marshal every available human resource can do nothing but flee before this disaster, what are we to learn regarding the reality of human finitude?

This is a question worth asking in a secularized culture that elevates the powerful and encourages us to emulate them, that sidelines faith in God as irrelevant and outdated, and that is convinced that scientific progress and technological prowess can solve all our problems.

To the degree that religion is considered acceptable today, it is as a means to our ends, a worldview that helps us be what we want to be while demanding nothing we don’t want to give. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis described such anodyne religion well:

When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children.

The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

“You do not know what tomorrow will bring”

The Los Angeles wildfires are the latest reminder that we are just as frail and finite as our earliest ancestors. Scientists now consider fire to be a yearlong risk in California, demonstrating that our homes are still capable of destruction from fires, earthquakes, and storms. President Carter’s Washington funeral demonstrates that the bodies of the most powerful among us are still mortal. Fears of a bird flu pandemic demonstrate that our future is still in peril from epidemics and diseases.

We may be more comfortable and live longer lifespans, but none of us is any less mortal than anyone else in all of human history.

Where does this leave us? Consider this ancient wisdom:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin (James 4:13–17).

Here we can identify three life principles worth embracing, whatever the challenges we face today.

One: Admit the uncertainty of your future and the finitude of your life.

Any Twelve Steps program begins with an admission of the person’s addiction. Any medical cure begins with a diagnosis of the condition. A house’s foundation cannot be repaired until the cracks are identified.

So it is with the “will to power” that motivates all fallen people, our desire to be our own god (Genesis 3:5) in charge of our own lives. The first step toward God’s best is admitting that we need his best, that we cannot manage our lives or navigate our future without his omniscience and omnipotence.

One way God redeems natural disasters is by using them to show us our need for divine grace.

Two: Seek God’s will for every facet of your life.

Our secularized culture separates Sunday from Monday and religion from the “real world.” As a result, we miss God’s wisdom for every dimension of our lives, his power and provision for every need we face. To begin every decision with the resolve, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that,” is to submit to his purpose and the power of his Spirit.

This is the only way to fully experience his wisdom and grace. God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him.

Three: Do what you know to do and trust God with the consequences.

When we know the right thing to do and fail to do it, we sin. Conversely, when we do what we know to do, we partner with God in advancing his kingdom and experiencing his best for our lives and our world.

This is not a theology of works righteousness. Rather, obedience positions us to experience God’s grace. It employs the gifts and capacities our Father has given us in his service, seeking to love him and others faithfully.

As we work, God works.

“The whole duty of man”

I am praying for those affected by the California wildfires: not just those who are losing their homes but the firefighters risking their lives, the leaders seeking to respond effectively, and especially the families who have lost loved ones.

And I am asking God to redeem this tragedy by drawing our secularized culture to himself in humble admission of our need for his provision and a renewed commitment to obeying his word and will. George Washington observed,

“The whole duty of man is summed up in obedience to God’s will.”

Will you do your “duty” today?