The weather forecast for Wednesday really wasn’t horrible – with the exception of a few hours during the morning when a frontal system was expected to come roaring through. This same weather system had already produced straight-line winds in excess of hurricane speeds as it worked its way through the middle part of the nation, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The predictive modeling used by our meteorologists anticipated that the people in front of the storm line would experience similar effects, so various authorities made decisions that they thought were best for the health and safety of those lives that they had some control over. A day before the storm was expected to arrive, schools were closed and appointments were canceled, and on Wednesday morning public ferry transportation was interrupted and local businesses announced revised hours or outright closure for the day. All eyes were on that three-hour window when that line would blast through, with people hoping and praying that their next few days weren’t going to be spent repairing the damage that might come.
Here we are on Thursday, and there is not one word in the local paper about damage caused by the storm. No uprooted trees, no roofs damaged, and certainly no buses or trucks blown over by powerful gusts of wind. Did God change His mind about the storm, and decide to spare us?
Certainly, we were spared the devastation that others experienced, and if God is all-powerful, then we should give Him credit for that. However, that isn’t the same as saying that the storm was going to devastate us without God’s intervention. Therein lies an important point that we need to understand.
Decisions to cancel activities and seek the safest route for the public were made as a result of weather forecasts. Meteorologist poured over data and models, undoubtedly influenced to some extent by the images of destruction caused by this system. These same meteorologists used their knowledge and experience to then provide a weather forecast that they believed was as accurate as they could predict. And while the science of weather forecasting has come a long way in the last 100 years, it still has a success rate that is well below 100 percent. Meteorologists are not God, and while they study the weather, they do not control it, and there are still variables that they haven’t figured out. We take their advice seriously, because they do often get things right, and that helps us with our daily planning. However, they will still get things wrong, even after we have re-ordered our daily lives to accommodate what they have predicted.
Friends, if we are willing to re-order our daily lives based on forecasts from meteorologists that are often wrong, shouldn’t we be willing to re-order our lives based upon God’s prophetic writings that haven’t been wrong yet? There is something far more impactful than a frontal system that all of us will have to navigate, and the Bible tells us how to weather that storm. Have you read it? If not, the next time your local meteorologist predicts doom and devastation for the area, why don’t you pick up the Scriptures and see what the One who controls the weather has to say.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron