A Significant Truth For All Kinds of Weather

2007-01-14

The Lord’s grace transcends all areas of our lives. Bear with me as I tell my story, for it will show how God has worked in my life as I traveled back to Missouri. I am compelled to tell of His greatness.

I left Pennsylvania at 4:45 a.m. on Friday morning. There was an ice storm in Missouri, and I was hoping to make it all the way to the New Tribes campus the same day. All the way through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, there were scattered showers. Through Saint Louis, everything was still very rainy, but no signs of ice or snow.

By 10 p.m., the ice started to come down. The majority of the vehicles, who had bravely been cruising by me at top speed, were now traveling as slow as I was. Even with the windshield defroster on high, the windshield wipers were freezing to the windshield, making a terrible rubbing and scraping sound. Thirty miles from Jefferson City, the highway, with plenty of inclines and declines, had become very dangerous.

Once very determined to make it to central Missouri, I elected to stop at a hotel. Very frustrated, half the time praying, half the time panicking, I slowly pulled into the parking lot. The innkeeper there had told me of some thirty accidents in the area. Feeling temporarily safe, I still knew the weather conditions were not going to improve anytime soon.

In the hotel room, I began reading Luke 7 and the faith of the centurion, the raising of the young man, and the question of John the Baptist. The same God that had healed the servant, raised the dead, and did many other miracles that could not be counted had kept me safe through all of this.

Still thinking about these things as I was lying in bed, and how worried I was about the next day’s travels, something very obvious (yet always forgotten) truth occurred to me. In all of the worries that humankind has ever pondered, there will be a day where none of these concerns will ever matter again. I thought to myself, if Jesus were to come back right now, would I really be worried about how I would get to campus? I think I would have greater things to think about at the time of His return! I confessed to God (and now openly proclaim!) that He is in control of all things and can do anything.

The next morning, seeing no precipitation, I cleared off all the ice on the car windows. The weather report on the television had projected a window of minimal freezing rain until the evening, so I took my opportunity to leave. My windshield wipers were rendered useless because of the ice (the one on the right was sticking out away from the windshield!), so I needed to travel while the freezing rain was holding off.

The highway was not too bad, but I knew that the serpentine roads that travel through the hills to get to the New Tribes campus would be nightmarish. A layer of white was on top of these roads, and I traveled no faster than 15 miles per hour at any one point, but I pulled into the campus safely.

I was told that it was amazing that I made it through those hills, and I can attribute this only to the grace and power of the living God who subdues all things. He gave me the comfort and the wisdom of decision making when I needed it, and kept me safe when any good driving habits would not help. The Lord can do anything! He is waiting for us to rest in Him. Whatever it is you do, put it in perspective with eternity, reserved for us in Jesus Christ.