Mesmerized by tornado coverage… there’s a famous storm chaser “Reed” whose Subaru has been smashed over and over by gorilla hail… he and a team of chasers capture amazing images and video, dangerous, yes, but sadly the more dangerous experiences it seems are the actual driving and potential hydroplane-ing on the rain. For 3 college kids died in a car accident recently, not from the tornadoes, but the chasing, driving back in bad weather.  We all know of “normal” car accidents… God rest their souls and comfort the families. 

We know how to warn others for these storms now, we also know the only thing to do is shelter if you can’t get out of the way. Plan ahead where you will go. Get safe. The storm chasers, however driven, do help weather predictions be confirmed with data. They give insight. They risk but for a reward: knowledge 

Well, tornadoes, is this is just nature being nature? If they only were in open fields it would be interesting and cool, but houses are now everywhere, the tornadoes are too, rapidly ravenously real. Lightning, hail, weather wicked or not wicked, just powerful. 

Does God have these storms planned or is it just random? If He knows the storehouses of snow, how about these harmful storms? We cannot expect Heaven on earth, YET. It will come, but there’s continuous work still to be done. Scripture does not paint a picture of constant peaceful times (now or in the past) but pockets of peace in harmony did exist, among major pockets of pain-filled times. God can take down storms or let them rage. God can miraculously save, or if He doesn’t then do we ask or assume He is letting things slide? I doubt that. I know enough to know that I DON’T KNOW ENOUGH about God’s plan in minutiae. I do know BIG picture, yet how He twists His paint brushes on the canvas of life are still often a mystery. 

I don’t have enough insight here. But I DO KNOW there were times where God had the punishments recorded for us to learn of people gone astray. God uses even the wicked for the day at hand. . . Aren’t you glad we have forgiveness from Jesus, covering us in His blood as not just shelter but purification thru any storms? We cling to His Good ness.

One story of drifting away from God involves Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and how the prophets knew the kingdom would mostly be ripped away by adversary Jeroboam, except one “house” structure standing,  of Judah the House of David, the lineage for the Light of the world, Jesus, to enter.

Israel and all creation had to wait out these twists of God’s Plan. Prophecy was given and fulfilled. (Ahijah a prophet took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me… 1st Kings 11) 

We are born into a broken world, but called into a wait-ful “system”.  All creation continues to wait thru these days too. We can see the storms, but can we focus above these clouds?

Can we wait out the remaining days of a wicked world? Can we be the storm chasers to help others navigate but also know when and where to shelter?

We can’t know every twist of God’s plan, but we can know He has one. Stay alert.

Amen 

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1Kings 12

Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”  So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:

“What share do we have in David,    what part in Jesse’s son?

To your tents, Israel!    Look after your own house, David!”

So the Israelites went home. But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them. King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.

When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered all Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—a hundred and eighty thousand able young men—to go to war against Israel and to regain the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.

But this word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: “Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, to all Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.’” So they obeyed the word of the Lord and went home again, as the Lord had ordered.