Joshua 20–21; Acts 1; Jeremiah 10; Matthew 24
Today’s newspaper has photos of a tornado in our area that killed several people several years ago. Also printed were reminders of a bigger one that hit our city in 1987. While remembering lives lost is important, photos like this of horrible weather may not encourage people with astraphobia (fear of thunder and lightning) or lilapsophobia (fear of tornadoes). I know several who hide in the basement during storms and right now is the season for them. Hot days and humid air builds thunder clouds and furrowed brows!
A few years ago, I had a lovely vegetable garden. Hail was falling in nearby areas and I worried that my garden would be ruined. Finally I talked to the Lord and gave Him the garden. If He wanted to hail on it, it was up to Him. While He could have, He didn’t. The best part is that I stopped worrying; it was no longer my garden. I had to do the same yesterday with three little tomato plants. Everything fits under the eaves except them. Now that they are God’s, I’m not worrying. They were His all along!
This morning’s chapter in Jeremiah is right on target. It starts with this:
Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them . . . .” (Jeremiah 10:2)
Right now, it seems God is throwing many signals to this messy world. Even ungodly people are saying the pandemic is His ‘reset button’ and certainly the pandemic and this weather makes us think beyond the ‘good life’ to more important topics, like what and who are we trusting?
Jeremiah goes on to speak of the uselessness of trusting idols that are like “scarecrows in a cucumber field” and the foolishness of putting our trust in things that are inert and without power. He says:
But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.” It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Jeremiah 10:10–13)
This would be frightening if I didn’t know the goodness of God. He proves it repeatedly in my life, but His greatest proof is in Jesus Christ:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31–32)
Storms come and go. A storm might be the way God takes me home to be with Him forever, or a virus, or a truck could hit me, or a stroke. Whatever He chooses it will mean stepping from this messy world into perfection and into the fullness of knowing Him as He knows me. Settling this fear of dying issue means not just giving my garden and my tomatoes to Him but my heart and my life.
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