Crack!

The thunder pealed through the humid air. The cool air outside, the light rain falling, the darkened sky, they all reminded me… of my youth at home and the thunder and lightning storms in the Pacific Northwest. I always loved it when storms came because it somehow relieved stress for me ever since I can remember. Perhaps it was coming in under shelter as the rain began to pour. Perhaps it was the patter of the rain drops punctuated by loud cracks of thunder.

“Thank you Lord for a thunderstorm to bring in the Sabbath!” I update Facebook, looking forward to relaxing as the Sabbath comes. And yet these are not my only associations with thunderstorms.

Scarcely a week ago I was in Arkansas. I witnessed a thunderstorm develop a wall cloud and rotation. Later we found out that it had turned into a tornado and overturned a mobile home with a pregnant mother and several children, all of who miraculously weren’t hurt. Later that evening the sky became dark again and the local siren went off and another tornado warning was issued. A couple days later we were driving east through an immense lightning storm and heavy rain. Lightning flashed every second, and I prayed that God would keep us safe and out of harms way.

Rewind a couple of years. April 2011. A huge series of thunderstorms and tornadoes ravaged Alabama and TN, including where I was staying at Gospel Ministries International’s office outside Chattanooga. I still remember that night like yesterday. Cell after cell blew through, each with it’s own high winds and rain, many of them spawning tornadoes. The power was cut by the storms, and we all were taking shelter in the office which was the safest place to be. I remember standing at the door watching the storms go by, ready to run for an inside room if the wind picked up. I still remember when the tornado came… It changed course missing us by a quarter of a mile. Hundreds of trees were down across the road. Just up the road someone was badly hurt and the ambulance couldn’t get to him. Emergency personnel cut the trees from the roadway before the ambulance could continue. But God was with us that night. Although we had about 5 trees go down at GMI, two of them falling on houses and doing damage, no one on the GMI land was hurt.

Looking later on satellite imagery from the area around GMI I could see that the swath of damage that the tornado had taken could have easily come strait across GMI’s property… but it didn’t. It was as if God’s hand had redirected it and prevented it from coming any closer. Truly God is capable of keeping His people safe.

Often we come into situations in our lives where we are compassed about with difficulties, with dangers, and it seems that the safest thing to do is to retreat. But God doesn’t want us to retreat. We can’t afford to retreat. When dangers beset us, when difficulties assail, when the powers of the evil one attempt to discourage us, we must move forward making God our refuge and fortress.

There are souls out there perishing in the storm, they are drowning for lack of the knowledge that we so contentedly keep to ourselves. We must share this knowledge God has so freely given us!  We may have to face the lightning and the thunder, and perhaps even spiritual tornadoes, but God is on our side! We must not turn back.