Weather.com


"He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.And when you see the south wind blowing, you say,'There will be scorching heat';and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky,but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Luke 12:54-56)

Our culture is fascinated by the weather. Inordinate amounts of time are devoted to it on television, and when there is an actual "weather event," the media (and many of us as a result) are riveted. A young friend of mine recently showed me around weather.com. I was amazed to discover what detailed weather information is available there. In addition to finely nuanced updates on precipitation--including the ability to "see" about 6 hours into the future as well as "revisit" the immediate past--one can also reference the current cloud cover worldwide as well as in one's own location. From that I learned that, at this moment in sunny Columbus, Ohio, we have narrowly escaped a huge cloud cover just to the north and east that stretches all the way to central Pennsylvania. Lucky us!

Jesus' sharp observation in Luke 12 could therefore be leveled against us with even more powerful force. Imagine if we devoted just one-tenth, or one hundredth, as much effort to discerning signs of the presence and activity of the triune God in our midst as we do to forecasting the weather. Signs of new life and new hope are all around us if we only open our eyes to see   them--from the small miracles of creation as the frozen earth begins to yield to spring, to unexpected kindnesses from a stranger or a friend, to remarkable occurrences we would otherwise chalk up as "coincidences." Imagine if every morning when we arose we asked not "What will the weather be like today?" but "What might God have in store for me today?"

"If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them,even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father." (John 10:37-38)

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