Hurricane Isabel was front-page news in September 2003 as it rampaged through the Middle Atlantic States, coming ashore first in all its fury near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, site of one of America's most famous lighthouses.

When the storm hit Hatteras, the only road to the outside was destroyed. Oceanfront houses were swept from their cement foundations and dropped elsewhere on the island. One entire hotel was deposited like a soggy cardboard box in the middle of a street. Appliances littered the island. But the lighthouse on the tip of the island remained standing.

That is a picture of what God's people should be like.