Storm Warnings

June 10, 2009 6:23-9:06 pm

Tonight in Plano Texas the storm clouds gathered and fast as birds on a wire the talk began to pass from mouth to mouth and the twittering began. Tornadoes… I noticed because I’d been watching the clock, gauging time, working on the reports needed for work but also knowing I’d have to pause to meet a friend for our weekly scheduled walk. I was just about to save the work and stop, get ready for the walk when the text came in asking if I was watching the news.

My immediate response was, interal sigh and mental shaking of head along wit the mental mutter, 'eventually she’ll learn I don’t ever watch the news unless someone calls to tell me to turn it on, so no I am not watching, nor have I been watching the news.' I simply told her, 'nope, why what's up?' Apparently there was a major tornado watch set for our area and our weekly walk would be better left postponed. We exchanged our weekly banter about work stress, usually our first fifteen minutes of walk time in a more condensed fashion. Eight minutes later we were off the phone. I decided to take my trash to the garbage before the water started pouring down as I closed my call. Descending the stairs the clouds started turning green and flying in fast as if air traffic control had given them clearance to land. It wasn’t touchdown yet, but as if the reckless cloud pilots had decided to buzz the tower as if doing a Maverick impression from TopGun.

Thunder clapped and water flew, lightning zigging around--not about to be left out of the party. Neighbors started pouring out of their apartments as if discombobulated by the disruption to their regularly scheduled programming and blinking to notice the other inhabitants of the shared space become more than just theoretical constructs. What used to be a common place occurrence, neighbors interacting becomes part of the pizzazz of the storms.

I stopped to watch and found myself exclaiming at the power of nature, how awesome and forceful. Then a gentle thought whispered in, if this is the mighty and fierce storm…which could very well get angrier as the newsmen are heralding…can you imagine what it would be like to stand in the face of the wrath of God. I know it’s talked about in churches, and it is flashed across the Old Testament just as rapid fire frequent as the newsman is urging us to heed the storm warnings. It is spoken of, or should be, when people talk about the cross and the sacrifice, the atonement that was made. Christ who appeased the wrath of God for us, who rightly should be answering up to our sins with no hope to repay or rectify.

“In our place, Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied…nail pierced hands, bleeding side, in my place Jesus died. Hallelujah what a Savior, Hallelujah what a Savior, my God crucified, Hallelujah what a Savior”, was part of the chorus that was sung on Sunday, that is now playing in my head…no need for electrical power here…to hear and replay a song that brought everyday people into the heart of worship. Yes, the amazingly good news of the gospel is that as helpless and hopeless as we were before the wrath of God, with blood on our hands and sin staining our souls, Jesus came and answered for us instead, atoning for the wrongs when His soul stood spotless before the Father, before our God. He died in our place; He died to restore us, to offer back to us life, hope, healing, and a home with the Eternal Father…with the mighty God.

The gravity of sin strikes me yet again tonight. Jesus has long been my only hope…my ONLY hope…but tonight as I sat powerless before the storm that descended, helpless to do anything against a coming storm, an impending tornado thinking about the absoluteness of such destruction that is possible…we’ve all seen the pictures, some of us have heard the stories from the victims mouths personally…and others have even lost all they owned, and yes, even loved ones to the might of an angry storm. Here we are in the most technology driven age, with impressive science and engineering often at our fingertips, holding it in our hands to transcend physical distances and do so very much….still nature stands uncontested in power and might, force and strength. We can but watch, measure, and track what it can do, not harness it. We all have no answer that would be sufficient enough to tell a forming cloud structure that this really isn’t the best time, most convenient, or desired thing to loose my house, my car, and to suffer the anxiety, fear and loss such destruction as a tornado touching down could do. None of us have the answer that would halt a tsunami, or quiet an eight point anything earthquake. No these forces of nature that seem so bent on destruction, so committed to their paths, their courses do not stop first to listen to whatever we would say. They come. We feel the wrath.

So, what would it like to stand before the wrath of God? Not a comforting thought, tornadoes, lightning, tsunamis…earthquakes, hurricanes…powerful forces indeed, no question. The wrath of God…not a comfortable topic to hear, to think about, to answer to. I cannot imagine, my mind can barely grasp the force of a tornado. I’m just coming to grips that the last hour or two of work I tapped out into my trusty keyboard may have been lost at the decent of a stream of light, and the bowing power loss. The sirens that blared their way into my otherwise quite normal night seemed to happen after the fact, not with advance warning, patiently waiting for me to be ready to lose power.

The return of Christ, similarly, will come unexpectedly, not when we’ve fixed ourselves, or prepared our speeches, reasons, and justifications. On some normal night, or day, in the midst of work, or a weekend He will come. Tonight as I consider how much more forceful and how much more intense the wrath of God could be and is in comparison to the storm still hovering and playing out above me…I remember the amazing grace available to us all. Jesus who is our only hope, and only answer before the wrath of God…who is the SHELTER for the storm, who offers us the protection we cannot give ourselves, and cannot prepare in advance, or even after the fact…He is, we are…and the sin stands…the wrath of God or the grace of God…it is our choice. The amazing grace is that fully justified in His wrath, God saves. He chooses to save. He not only desires it, He did it, He did what we could not, answered where we would not have the words required…He waits for us to respond to all that He has done…What a Savior!

Tonight as the storm raged and my feeble prayer went up to have shelter from the storm …as I watched the impressive force of nature, beginning to realize how much more was at stake than just a few hours of work…just beginning to be impressed on with the reality of something I’m powerless to stop, or change…and the dawning impression that echoed the dawn like pink and green clouds lit from within when the sun had long since set of how much more incredible it would be to stand, unsheltered and unprepared for the wrath of God and what that might look like…and this peace that held me buffeted like the swirling breeze I don’t have to have an answer, I won’t have to face the wrath of God…it was done for me. I am saved. To sit back and watch the storm play out, to rest knowing that no matter what storms in life I face…no matter what comes into my life or what is taken from it…I am covered by the might love and grace of God.

No matter what…I did before, have done since, will do…all of my sin is atoned for. The wrath of God is satisfied…met, absorbed for me…the cross, the crucifixion…”Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe…sin had left a crimson stain, He washed me white as snow” (another hymn).

There is no amount of thanks I could utter to cover the great swell of relief I feel to know my sin is paid for…my Shelter in the storm is Jesus…who knows it all, and is not unprepared, unready or surprised by the storms I face, the forces I feel, or the weight of glory and the wrath of God which all demanded an answer…and I have one. There is no excuse or explanation, nothing I could say that would alter or justify…I have no defense, save one…no refuge, save one…no shelter, save one.

My hope is that for any that might read my storm inspired contemplations is that they too might realize and have the harbor for the storms of life, the shelter from the wrath of God…that they would have and know Jesus…the mighty Savior. Let Him be your answer, let Him be your refuge, your harbor, your hope. Seek Him while there's time...seek Him while there's time, don't wait for the siren to blare. Seek and you shall be found; seek and you will find....so much more....

God Bless.