Thought for Today
Genesis 1:2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Psalm 55:8 I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest."
Luke 7:24 When John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the
wind?
James 1:6 But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind;
This morning as I drank my first cup of coffee, I heard a network newscast mention the violent weather assaulting the Texas Gulf Coast. Already, in the first wave of lashing rain, hail, and high winds, 250,000 homes in the Houston area were without power. Millions of people are under tornado alerts and watches. And there’s more to come.
Of course, Greta and I will be praying for all of our family, friends and former neighbors in Houston as they experience this storm. Just as we know that they pray for us when New England is ravaged by nor’easters. In both cases, there will also be prayers lifted to God for everyone else in the affected areas. Christians pray.
As I listened to that story, memories passed through my mind about storms we endured in Texas and here in New England. Our first New England winter was ‘blessed’ with a total snowfall of 100.” There were nor’easters. There were cold fronts. For some understanding of the impact on translocated Texans, in our 70+ years along the Gulf Coast we had only seen snow actually cover the ground 5 times. The record snowfall we recall was 4”. Yes, we had gone snow skiing in Colorado; but, that is very different from seeing the field in back of our house under 4’ – 5’ of snow.
We remember the Gulf squalls and the hurricanes of our years in Houston. Greta and I both grew up in what is now the inner city, primarily in the southwest of Houston. We moved to the north central part of town to raise our own family. West and northwest Houston are within the southern tip of what is known as the Big Thicket. Eastern Texas and western Louisiana are densely forested. Loblolly pines, different oaks, sweetgums and dogwood trees, among others, grow so closely together that legend is that in pioneer times you could not even ride a horse through the forest.
That is a wonderful area to visit any day . . . except during a storm. Especially during the night, hearing tree trunks crack and/or uproot, branches falling crashing to the ground always reminded me of that prayer offered by the English poet Alfred Noyes, “From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggety Beasties, and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord deliver us!” (wordhistories.net) Things that go bump in the night are scary.
I was also reminded this morning of how small our world is today. Not that the actual diameter of our planet has shrunk, but that advances in communication and transportation have brought all of us much closer together. It is impossible to ignore the suffering and want in other regions once far away. Nightly, we are confronted with pictures of wars in foreign lands, of floods, fires and storms many miles from our homes.
When WWII began, many Americans, including some generals and admirals, needed to consult a map to find out where the conflicts were being waged. When the Korean War (I know, it was not officially a ‘war,’ but a war by any other name is still a war), began few Europeans or Americans had any idea of where Korea was. Today, we see pictures for all points on our globe on our nightly news.
As we see news stories about meteorological events and read about economic struggles, tariffs and trade imbalances, we are confronted with the reality that we all live on the same planet. God created the heavens and the earth, and (as far as we now know) only put people on one planet. And the winds that “swept over the face of the waters” today sweep over us all. Americans, in our Pledge of Allegiance, acknowledge that we are “one nation, under God,” but the reality is that ours is a planet of ‘one people, under God.’ What affects one of us, truly affects us all.
Stay safe, pray for us all, trust God,
Pastor Ray