I did not want to write about this topic. In fact, what I really wanted was to jump on Facebook and poke fun at everyone sharing pictures and comments related to the topic. I wanted to say something like this: “THANK YOU to everyone who posted pictures of the snow and who made comments about the white stuff falling in September—in Spokane! I had NO idea it was snowing right where I live! Thank you SO MUCH!”

 

This past weekend, just five days after summer officially ended on the calendar, snow did indeed fall in our city. Apparently, snow had not fallen in Spokane in September since 1926. All irritation and joking inside, the weather (and especially our lack of control over it) reminds me of a brief interchange I had with my next-door neighbor a few years ago. We were in the middle of this heavy, never-ending winter, which meant I saw him frequently when I was out shoveling and he was snow-blowing. I mentioned that I couldn’t believe how much snow was falling, and how often it was falling. He replied with this: “We are just observers.”

 

My friend next door, who was kind and friendly but did not follow Jesus, spoke truth beyond what he realized. We read this in Jeremiah 10:12-13:

 

¹² But God made the earth by his power;
          he founded the world by his wisdom
          and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
¹³ When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
    he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
    and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

 

God created, and certainly can control, the weather we experience. We are just observers. I might get annoyed when a forecast gets my hopes up and then lets me down. I may get frustrated when icy roads make driving dangerous. And I will even get angry when major weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes destroy lives and property.

 

Although God created nature as a “very good” thing, it is no longer inherently good. The Bible tells us that because of human sinfulness, the world did not stay “very good.” All of nature, including our weather, was affected by man’s fall to sin and God’s curse. The pain and sorrow of this present world, including severe weather and its consequences, demonstrate the imperfection in and around us.

 

But we serve a God who will make all things right, and all things new. As the apostle John wrote: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:1, 4).

 

I’m eager to observe that.

 

Troy Burns