Scripture
The LORD makes the clouds rise from far across the earth, and he makes lightning to go with the rain. Then from his secret place he sends out the wind.
~Psalms 135:7, CEV
Quote
Every thing has a purpose: God does nothing chaotic.
~Ya’akov
Practically everyone understands the purpose of rain but many a human has despised wind and lightning. Our new family Doctor is an Auburn graduate which has absolutely nothing to do with what I am trying to communicate. He is a very bright young man, a good doctor and very humble. You don’t meet many humble physicians. Recently, he and I were having a conversation and the weather came up: I said, “We need a good hurricane in the gulf, I don’t mean one that destroys life but one that will push the moisture our way.” He looked at me like a calf looking at a new gate. I said, “You do know that hurricanes are God’s conduits for rain. Without hurricanes, North America would be a desert.” He said, “I did not know that.”
Everything has a purpose; the problem is our understanding. Wind has a purpose. We need wind. Remember the story of the farmer who stayed ill with God because He didn’t send the rain when the farmer wanted rain. God finally said, “OK, you don’t like how I do things: I am putting you in charge of your 60 acre farm. I am giving you to power to make rain or whatever whenever you want it.” The farmer thought, this will be a piece of cake so he had it rain everytime he thought his corn needed rain. In middle to late August, the farmer walked into his green lush cornfield to examine a few ears of corn but all he found was shucks. His corn was green but there was no fruit. He cried out to God in despair: “What are You doing?” The LORD said, “What have you done?” The farmer said, “I called for rain everytime my patch got dry.” God said, “Did you call for wind?” “No,” said the farmer “but what does that have to do with my corn?” “The wind causes pollination” said the LORD. “That is why you have no corn.”
What about the lightning? About 78% of our atmosphere is made up of Nitrogen but in its unduluted form, it is unusuable to plants on the earth. We need the nitrogen but we cannot use pure nitrogen, it would burn up the plants. The lightning, thunder storms break the nitrogen down to a usuable level. This usuable nitrogen is added to our soil through precipitation, rain and snow. Snow has greater levels of nitrogen than rain. The bottom line is: we need thunderstorms and yes, lightning. The plants and vegetation depend on nitrogen.
I know what you are thinking. “OK Mr. know it all, what about flies and mosquitos?” I am glad you ask and I will tell you…“I don’t know.” BUT my ignorance does not mean they were created without a purpose. There is a purpose, I simply do not know what it is. We did not know the purpose of lightning until the last century. A century from now, we will probably know why God created flies and mosquitos. Yahweh is teleological.
- June is normally our weather buff but with the draught I have taken a keen interest in the weather. I listen to radio more than I watch TV for obvious reasons and yesterday, the woman kept saying the same thing over and over, “dry air moving in, lower temps at night but hot in the daytime with no rain in sight.” She came on last night as we were driving home and said the same thing she had been saying all day and I began fussing. June upbraided me which she does quite often, “Your fussing is not going to help a thing, God will send us rain when we need it.” I said, “We need it right now, we just don’t deserve it.” If Adam and Eve had not fouled up, we would have all the rain we need.
- Joe David preached at Sardis Springs last night and did a great job. There is only one problem, his sermon convicted me. I felt rather uncomfortable.
- I am preparing for the GATHERING today: Mandy is working on our YEAR END REPORT which is good in spots. God is at work in DBC but of course God is at work everywhere. It is refreshing to see HIM at work. Be praying about Sunday: we will be voting on our new pastor at the end of the service. Pray that God’s will be done.
- We gave $41,000 to GRACE MINISTRIES which is our partnership mission work in Guatemala [International Missions]. I’m not bragging, it should be $82,000. We gave just under $14,000 to the Morgan Baptist Association and over $18,000 to the Cooperative Program. We are involved in other mission endeavors that do not show up on the annual report. For some reason, there is no space on the report for local missions. Our MISSION GIVING is down because our giving as a whole is down [40,000 below last year]. Our Summer slump should have ended in September but it did not. The economy is not good but that is not the major problem. The problem is we are spending more and more on ourselves and giving less and less to the LORD’s work.
