Thunder Storm season is upon us, finally.We have been in one of the driest seasons that our area has ever experienced. Normally, each day in the summer we have thunderstorms roll in from the Gulf. This year it has not happened with any regularity until this past week. The storms are beautiful to behold. They rise into the atmosphere with authority. The send shafts of lighting to the ground repeatedly. The thunder sounds like a 19th century artillery duel. The rain comes in torrents. I love it.
Yet, it was not always so. When I was a wee lad I was terrified of storms. I would hide in our little house behind the gas heater until they passed. I can still recall the odour of that hiding area over thirty-five years later. One afternoon as a storm was approaching our house my daddy took me out onto the little concrete stoop we had. He pointed out the storm to me. I wanted to run inside and hide. He kept talking. Explaining to this little five year old that God made the storms. That lightning causes the thunder. I can still remember that chat.
Later that summer we moved from our little house in Georgia to a new house in Arkansas. I 'helped' my daddy in the U-Haul truck. As we passed through the frying pan flats of the Arkansas Delta we drove through sections of rice and soy beans. In the distance there were very strong thunderstorms developing. Again, my daddy pointed them out and, because of the open country, he could show me much of what he'd already taught me. My response this time was very different. I wanted us to drive through the storms. I wanted to experience this phenomenon with my father who understood so much of it.
Now, I'm a storm bug. I love them. They fascinate me. I ended up growing up in one of the most active sections of the country for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. While I have a great deal of respect for them, I am drawn to them.
In our lives we have fear. Some fears are rational. Others, are not rational and works of our minds. Regardless of the source of our fear if we are Christians we have a Father who not only knows the details of the storm in which we find ourselves. He is the sovereign Lord of the situation and ultimately brings it into our live for our good. Romans 8:28 is an oft quoted and little understood passage of Scripture.
'For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose.'
This is not a trite platitude that is to be tossed around. These words are the very anchor of sanity for the Christian. If you are called by God to salvation it is with a purpose. It is a plan of God and each occasion in our lives rests in the hand of God.
As we grow we should come to realise that we should not fear the storms of life. Rather, we should cherish them as the gifts of God that they are.
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2 comments:
I don't think all storms are "gifts of God." Doesn't look like that in Job. God let it all happen, but it wasn't a gift; it was a vicous attack by Satan, and I don't know Job could have been expected to cherish it.
Same for my own life. The worst storms have occurred when things were not happening the way God made things to work. Yes, He worked through them and around them and in them, but I'll never say He sent them as gifts.
It would be almost like saying the Fall was a gift from God. (I know you didn't say that, but I don't see how you can avoid it if you take this approach.)
No. Redemption is the gift. The Fall was the result of sin.
And many of the storms of life are the result of sin, whether our own or someeone else's, or because nature has been cursed as a result of sin....
I'll cherish seeing what God did with the storms, but I could never tell myself or anyone that certain stoems should be cherished as gifts of God.
But I do love storms in nature!
Sheila, I will agree that the fallen world in which we live is vastly different than that which was the original design. However, God in his sovereignty still utilises the effects of that sin to make his own have 'good' results. From our perspective it is bad, evil, and sometimes just plain ol' awful. But, even in Job's situation his end was better than his beginning. Yes, there was great deal of loss but, his knowledge of God was far more intimate and well founded at the end.
Additionally, Satan did not just go after Job willy nilly. As a matter of fact God is the one who brought Job into the picture, not Satan.
I thnk our disagreement may be more one of semantics than acutal disagreement.
Sin and its after effects are a fact of life. They hurt and are damaging. But, for the child of God, because of redemption, they are too ultimately a blessing.
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