God's Not A Weatherman

I had an interesting conversation with my 8-year-old son a couple days ago. Here's the gist of it.

"Dad, is it going to snow?"

"Well, son, one thing I've learned is that when it comes to snow, you can't always trust what the weatherman says."

"I guess your right. I think I really only trust the radar."

It looks like my 8-year-old has learned a valuable life lesson. Here, in Southeast Texas, snow is a rare find. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen it actually snow here. Naturally, when the weatherman says there's a chance, there's a bit of excitement in the air. And, when he says there's an 80% chance like he did this week, even the biggest skeptics can start to believe.

Even with a huge chance like that in the forecast, we awakened this morning to find no snow on the ground. I thought it a bit humorous today when one local weatherman fielded some questions from some elementary children who were a bit upset at discovering the ground absent of white fluffy snow this morning. He tried so hard to explain what happened and why there was no snow. Needless to say, I think most kids didn't really care about why it didn't snow, they just are bummed it didn't.

With all our modern technology, forecasting the weather is still done with a great margin of error. The computer models, the weatherman's expertise, and the hopes of all the children still can't make this process an exact science. While they are much more accurate than they were a few decades ago, they still miss it. The truth is, the job of forecasting the weather requires a great deal of speculation and educated guessing. Sometimes they nail it and sometimes they don't.

Back to my son's comment about the radar. He's figured out that the radar represents what's happening now. It's not forecasting. It's not guessing. It's what is. If he sees rain on the radar, he knows its raining right then and there. Its not hard to trust something like that. It's real. Although the radar may show its raining hundreds of miles away you can rest assured that its raining there even though you are not there to personally witness it.

Our faith in God is a great deal like that. We don't see Him, yet we know He exists. Like that radar screen, God's Word reveals truths about Him. Those truths, coupled with our faith launches us past the point of believing into the place of knowing. A place of assurance. A place that doesn't require any of our five physical senses to experience anything in order to know with confidence. My son never has to see the storm with his own eyes to know that it exists. All he needs to see is the image on a radar and he knows it is. Our Creator is revealed throughout Scripture. Page after page, there He is. Yes, He's in heaven, He's here on earth and He's everywhere else. But, in Scripture we can see Him. Not with our physical eyes, but with the eyes of our understanding, our eyes of faith. He's more real than anything we can see with our natural eyes.

Our biggest problem is we trust our five physical senses more than we do God's Word. Our five physical senses though are a lot like the weatherman. They can't always be trusted. No, I'm not dissin' the weatherman. I'm just making a point, that if we want to trust in something that is absolute, unchanging, and completely stable, then we'll have to learn to tap into this thing called faith. We'll have to learn how to gravitate toward believing God's Word more than we do our five senses.

God is real. His kingdom is more real than this world we live in. His kingdom is forever. Its eternal. The economy in His kingdom doesn't rise and fall. He's not on His throne wringing His hands and working up a sweat at all the calamity that's going on in the world. He's not worried about how things are going to play out. He's not sitting around throwing around odds with the angels as to whether things are going to go as planned. He wrote the script and it'll play out the way He said it would. He's at peace because, His kingdom is superior to the one in which we live in here on this earth. When our faith is rooted in His kingdom, then all is well with us. When our faith is truly in Him then we can walk through life with an assurance and confidence that is puzzling to those who trust in things that are filled with uncertainty.

The kind of life God designed each of us to live is one in which our trust and confidence is in Him and nothing else. God's not a weatherman. His Word is not full of speculation and educated guesses. His Word is full of truth and absolutes. When He speaks, its a done deal. Faith anchored in Him will prove to be more certain than confidence in anyone or anything else.

An Awesome Place To Live

Worry....it happens during those moments when we have more confidence in an unfavorable outcome than we do in a favorable one. It occurs when we have little or no control over a situation and the outcome is completely out of our hands. Worry leads to stress which in turn can lead to some major physical problems.

So, why do we do it? Why do we sit around wringing our hands worrying about those things we can do nothing to fix? It's as if something inside of us just takes over doesn't it? We can't fix it, remedy it, or control it so everything in us tells us to worry. Of course, our worrying always fixes the problem. Yeah, right. Truth is, it never does. Worrying never fixes anything.

Think of all those moments when you've sat around worrying about something and the end result proved that you had nothing to worry about in the first place. Or, how about those moments when you've worried about something that turned out just as bad as you expected. Honestly, did the worrying help? Of course, it didn't. Here's my point, there are things in life we can do nothing about. Now, all you faith people don't shut me out here. I'm talking about those times when we've prayed, we've believed, we've quoted scripture, and done everything else we can possibly do in order to affect a situation or circumstance. Once you are there, there is nothing else you can physically do.

So, we worry. We panic. We get all stressed out. We sit around wringing our hands hoping things somehow, someway turn out better than we anticipate. It is only when we get to a place in our life when we truly trust God that worry is no longer our default state of being. It is only when we really trust that He's got our best interest in mind, or that we have total confidence in God's ability to be in control. Yeah, we know He's God, but our problem is sometimes we're not really sure He's up to the God role. At least, our actions say that.

When we can lay our head on our pillow at night with the confidence that God's at the helm and because of that all is well, that's faith. No, I didn't say that all is well with the world around us, just the fact that God is the one that's sitting on the throne. He's the one in charge. When we know that, I mean really know that, our actions and reactions take on a much different look. When we know, not just hope, that He's working in our life, righting the wrongs, fixing what's broke, and preparing us for what's ahead, it affords a confidence that we could have no other way.

Faith isn't quoting scripture or claiming something through the power of positive thinking. It's knowing. It's not a formula or a ritual. It's the point where my hope has given way to a confidence so sure that it no longer requires me to hope. It's the point at which the thing I hoped for, I know I have even though I've not actually touched it, smelled it, tasted it, or seen it. As a result, my life becomes a reflection of that confident knowing. Do you think a person who knows acts different than a person who hopes and wishes? Absolutely!

God longs for us to trust Him. He so desperately wants us to know that He's trustworthy and faithful. He wants us to live in such a way that our lifestyle screams all is well because God is on the throne even when what we see is telling us different. The truth is, this world around us and how our 5 physical senses navigate through it, can be a constant challenge for our faith. The main problem is that we are so acquainted with this world and the way it works. What is necessary for us is to become more acquainted with God and how He works. When we determine to do that is when our faith and confidence in Him begins to grow. Its a journey. Its a process of learning to trust and believe God. The final destination is a sweet one though. Its a place void of worry, and fear. Its a place of perfect peace, and complete confidence in One more capable than any other. Its a place of rest and relaxation. It's a place called faith and believe me when I say, you've got to go there some day. It really is an awesome place to live!