Winter weather
Have you been outside today? It was chilly this morning. I have lived in Missouri all but five years of my life and I am surprised at how fast a man can become accustomed to mild winters.
I was at the hospital the other day, visiting one of our members, and one of the volunteers commented on how bad the weather was, she asked if I had a hard time getting to the hospital in the ice. I told her that I took my time and stayed away from the least traveled roads. I also mentioned that I knew how to drive in bad weather because I grew up in the Midwest and we had a lot of bad weather. She went on to tell me that the Triad “ALWAYS” has bad weather and she should know how to drive in it too. I don’t think that this area “always” has bad weather but it does get bad weather every year, there is a big difference
It isn’t uncommon to have bad weather in our lives too; it is just something that happens. When people go through storms we always think, “Well bless their hearts”, and “thank God it isn’t us”. In the past I have been without electricity for two weeks because of ice. It was terrible, I had the flu and it was my birthday that week. It was cold and we started getting some rain. The ice started to build up on the trees, it looked beautiful at first, it started getting thicker and when we went outside it was deathly quiet. You know what I mean, the snow absorbs all of the sound and you can’t even hear cars till they are right in front of your house. All of a sudden, like a squirrel rifle going off I heard the first tree limb break. In the next three days we had several thousand more limbs break and if you drive through Missouri today and look at the trees in the creek bottoms you will still see some of that damage. That happened in 2000; it will take years for all the forests and log jams in the creeks to clear up.
Life is like that too. We have storms, some worse than others, the ones we can dodge we do, and we are glad they didn’t happen to us. Have you ever watched the news and gone in to hug you children while they slept? Kind of glad they didn’t have to go through what ever you saw on T.V.? Life is that way for a lot of people, always waiting for some storm. God doesn’t want us to have to weather stuff like that. He wants us to have joy to get us through the rough stuff, not wollering in self-pity waiting for our next calamity.
I know God could stop our storms, but we have to be able to help others get through their storms and if we didn’t have any experience fighting our own battles what good would we be? In John 10:10 Jesus says, “the devil comes to kill steal and destroy but I come to give us life and give it abundantly”.
Do you have joy in your life? Storms come and storms go, God will let them stay so that we are stronger and more able to help our fellow man. Are you going through a storm right now? Is it tough going through it alone? If you don’t have a church I would invite you to come to CrossPoint and find out what it is like to be supported by people that love you. If you do have a church, I would encourage you to see your pastor or other maturing Believer and get some helpful prayer for your storm. If people know you need help they are more likely to come to your aid. Don’t let the devil destroy you. We aren’t equipped to handle storms alone. Accept the abundant life that Jesus offers.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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