Google Earth Tracks Refugees

Google, the Internet giant, has announced a new feature under their Google Earth program. The software enables users to actually keep tabs on the movements of refugees world-wide who have fled their homes for one reason or another.

The technology uses satellite images to hone in on groups as they travel or settle somewhere away from the original location. Google intends to provide some groups with training and their professional version of the mapping software, something they claim could be beneficial to non-profit aid workers.

The computer age has brought about staggering advancements and allowed man to achieve things never previously dreamed of. Perhaps this is part of what God spoke to the prophet about in Daniel chapter 12. In verse 4 He commands His servant and says, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” And increase it has!

Although computer and satellite technology is relatively recent, the concept of refugees is surely not. It has been part of the human condition from nearly day one. Even the first man and woman experienced this fate after their willful disobedience in Genesis 3 forced God to drive them from the lush garden home they had enjoyed.

Then the New Testament book of Hebrews records another group of refugees – a group who were persecuted and scattered for the exact opposite reason. Some of God’s choice servants are remembered in chapter 11 - a passage often referred to as “God’s Hall of Faith”. After speaking of several better-known saints, the author turns his attention to those he calls simply “others”.

Verse 32 begins by relating the dreadful treatment many received for outwardly evidencing their inward faith. “Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented - of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith.”

The next chapter then begins by revealing God’s purpose in sharing the plight of the “others” and all spiritual refugees. “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

Every member of the family of God is a refugee of sorts. Paul reveals the basis of this concept in Philippians 3:19. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

An awful as it is to lose one’s earthly and material anchors, the sincere follower of Christ can grasp perspective not understood or offered to non-believers. For only Christians can comprehend the truth, and claim the promise, found in 1 John 2:16-17. “For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Bill Breckenridge