Wildfires and Drunken Elephants

I've been watching some of the coverage of the California wildfires that are going on right now. The numbers reflecting the impact are staggering:

1000 - 1400 homes destroyed
500,000 people evacuated
1200 square km burned.

It made me think back to the forest fires that burned hundred's of homes in Kelowna a few years ago. This summer when Pam and I were in Kelowna, we could still see the extent of those fires, especially from the middle of the lake.

A friend of mine actually saw those fires in a prophetic dream prior to when they actually started. I don't recall if there was a specific message related to the Kelowna fires (I'd have to ask him) but I remember how stunned I was when he told me about it.

I wonder if there is any prophetic significance to the California fires. I suppose there's lots of prophetic words out there by now! There is lots of recognition that climate change is certainly a factor, however I can't help but wonder what the Lord is saying in all of this. Not saying He's causing it necessarily (although I don't rule that out!) but in the midst of it, what is God saying?


One a slightly more humorous note, there was a new article today which I loved, about some Asian elephants that wandered into a village in India looking for food. What they found was large barrels of rice beer. The elephants drank so much of the rice beer that they become drunk (can you imagine how much beer that would take!!) The story actually turns tragic when one of the elephants stumbled up against a high voltage electric pole, knocked it over and got electrocuted; other elephants came to help and they too got electrocuted. (again, we're talking about a seriously high voltage pole!) Many other elephants in the herd ended up safe.

Here's an interesting thought: why do we (I) tend to look for prophetic significance in a large-scale serious event like the wildfires, but not so much in the initially humorous, turned tragic tale of drunken elephants in India? Obviously God can and does speak through all types of events, yet why do we look for it in the one, more often than the other?