Early yesterday morning, I found myself on a wild goose chase. Well, to be more specific, it was a wild ice-melt chase, and it all happened because I’m a meteorologist mocker. Allow me to explain.
When you live down south, you make fun of meteorologists. Well, maybe you don’t, but I do. I laugh at how intense they get over seemingly normal weather events. I chuckle when their voices get more excited as they talk about dew points and barometric pressure. But what really gets me in full-on mocking mode is when they treat weather in other areas as if it’s weather in our area.
I know why they do it, of course. They do it because there’s never really enough extreme weather in our area for them to talk about, and so – often out of sheer boredom, probably – they do silly things like break into my local programming with news about dangerous weather that has a 1.237% chance of happening in some other part of the state that’s so far away that it won’t affect me even though I’m the one actually watching the alert instead of the show that got interrupted.
In the words of people a lot younger than me, it’s cray cray.
And that, my friends, is how I found myself in and out of stores looking for storm supplies on the same day that, according to Gov. Pat McCrory, “one of the toughest storms we’re going to see in our history” was supposed to hit. Quite simply, after so many false alarms, I was having a hard time really believing that the “storm of the century” that gets predicted every year was really going to happen this year.
And so, I did nothing and ended up with nothing to help me through the storm. And while I’d like to blame my lack of preparation on the professional weather geeks, I’ve got no one to blame but myself. But enough about me. Let’s talk about how this applies to something that really matters.
There’s an interesting story in the Bible about a man named Lot who lived in the city gone wild, Sodom. For all kinds of reasons, Sodom was at the top of the “Most Likely to be Destroyed by a Catastrophic Weather Event” list and because Lot had a uncle who was a good man, God sent angels to warn him of the impending doom and give him the chance to escape along with his family.
Right in the middle of the story (you can read it for yourself in Genesis 19), we find Lot going to his sons-in-law and warning them about the huge weather system headed their way, and in one of the saddest sentences in the Bible, we read that “his sons-in-law thought he was joking.” Hmmm. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like me mocking the weather geeks. But it also points out something far more sobering for the church in America today.
If you study the life of Lot, you’ll find that he wasn’t a very righteous man. He claimed the God of the Jews as his God, but he lived a life that didn’t back it up. In fact, when the men in Sodom found out that some angels had come to warn Lot, they asked to have sex with them. (Requesting sex with angels? Yep, that’ll get you a catastrophic event!!) Lot, in an attempt to protect the angels, actually offered his own daughters to the sexed up crowd. Yeah, the daughters that were pledged to be married to the sons-in-law that he’s now warning about the coming sulfur storm. Is it any surprise that they ignored him?
As anyone who has ever heard a dramatic snow forecast and then woken up to nothing on the ground can attest, hearing one thing and seeing another leads to doubt. That doubt is dangerous, because when the time comes to actually warn people of a real impending storm, we may find that they’re a little burned out on phrases like “catastrophic weather event,” and the end result will be that they’ll tune out our voices even though we’re actually trying to help them.
As followers of Jesus, we’ve got a pretty important message to deliver. It’s a message of a judgement that will happen, but it’s also a message of a God who is waiting because he’s patient and full of mercy.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
It’s a message that is way too important to be diminished by empty words and powerless lives. We can’t afford to follow Jesus in such a way that allows people who need to hear our words to have the luxury of tuning out our words because our lives make our words sound like a joke. There’s too much at stake to live as if we haven’t bought what we’re selling.
What’s the best way to make sure that the message is heard? Live in such a way that when you tell them about what’s coming and that they need to be prepared, they’ll take you seriously because your life matches your words.
There is a storm coming, and we’ve got a message of hope to share before it gets here.
Live it so when you say it others will believe it.
Great word this morning Pastor Paul. It touched me and made me realize the time is getting short and we have much to do !!!
Thanks, Judy! Enjoy the beautiful snow!!