(ThyBlackMan.com) In Revelation, Jesus said that He’d rather us (the Church) be hot or cold and not lukewarm. The irony of this is that it’s when the weather tosses these extremes of hot and cold at us that we show lukewarm sentiments the best! While He wasn’t speaking from a meteorologist’s point of view, it is still interesting to note how we respond to things we attribute to God when they make us uncomfortable.
God is omnipotent. Those who believe in Him ascribe to this definition of His indefinite power. As such, I know that at one point in time, it made sense to me to say that He controls the weather. I especially defaulted to this philosophy when the weather man got the forecast wrong. As much faith as we put into a man who puts his faith into technology and systemic calculations, it’s funny how we’ll hang that same man out to dry when we get rained on or don’t get the rain he called for unexpectedly. Such incorrect forecasts served as reminders to me of Who is really in charge.
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When the Weather FrontsA weather front’s a
Clever stunt to remind us
Who’s the lesser dunce.*
Weather Proof
Weather treasures the
Immeasurable proof of
An all-knowing God.
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But I’ve been doing some thinking lately. Is it more impressive to say that God controls the weather, earth and planets or to say that He created them to be self-sustaining? Think about it. For those who saw the movie Inception, one of the simplest but most impressive images was that of DiCaprio’s spinning totem.
SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT… consider yourself warned!
In his dream state, he and his crew had something they called a “totem” to help them determine whether or not they were in the real world or their dreams when/if they lost their bearings. DiCaprio’s character chose a small metallic spinning top as his totem. If the top spun without losing momentum or toppling over, he knew he was still in his dreams. Fully immersed in the movie experience, seeing that spinning top indefinitely perpetuate itself seemed almost magical.
In my reimagining of God as He relates to the weather, I see the earth as a spinning top. A device that God created and put energy into in the beginning that now and forever more (until He says otherwise), will sustain and reuse that energy. I’ve watched a few shows about the earth on the Discovery and History Channels that attributed cyclical Ice Ages to its tendency to toggle the polarities of the North and South Poles from time to time – seemingly responding to offset irregularities in temperature and other imbalances that have beset it.
If God built the earth to do that then He doesn’t have to oversee it – just like you and me! Yes – He can/may stir up the occasional once in a lifetime world deluge or the occasional split of the Red/Reed Sea but all in all, He has made it to be self-governing.
Think of it from a child-parent point of view. The Bible says that if a parent trains a child up in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). When you see a grown man that is successful and has his life in order, how would your impression of that man be shaped if you found out that his mother or father was hand-holding him at every step of the way… well into his 30s?!!
What would you think of the parent(s)? Have they not crippled their child in an attempt to control and perfect the outcome of his life? Well, the earth is well over 30 million years old by most scientific calculations and God has shown through His dealings with us that He doesn’t work like that. If He did, we’d all be perfect drones controlled by Him as well… and we are far from that, to say the least!
I illustrated this imperfection best when, while still attributing complete control over the earth to God, I would complain about the weather. But if I complained out the weather which is an extension of the ever-controlling hand of God, then am I not complaining about God?
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Weather VainHow vain are we to
Complain of rain, heat or sleet
Like fair weather friends!
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In my current understanding – choosing instead to recognize Him as the Creator of a self-sustaining universe – I still watch what I say about the weather. If I can accept that a computer genius can create artificial intelligence and code for the video games, computers and social networking sites I use on a daily basis, then surely I can recognize the articulately authenticate intelligence God programmed into the heavens AND the earth. As such, I am thankful for the cold as much as I am for the blazing heat. Out of respect and awe for how wonderfully God’s entire creation is, I try to sit back and enjoy it – marveling at the totem as it spins and adjusts itself on the countertop of time and space.
Staff Writer; Reggie Legend
This child of GOD can be contacted at; ReggieL@ThyBlackMan.com.
