Have you ever stood in the middle of a flash flood thunderstorm on a steamy August afternoon with heat so thick that it's heavy...with hazy steam and bright....sun shining around huge fat black billowing clouds so stuffed you know they have dimension but it's greater than you can visage? Have you thought I want to get closer that kind of power, the building, pounding, rolling, swelling blackness violating any space that it encounters as it becomes increasingly loud, belligerent-obnoxious in its own self indulgence as it seems to swallow whole sunlight?
Yeah, me too!
Somehow I managed to be on top of the highest point in our county in just that type of storm about a month ago...No. I didn't do it on purpose, but then, I would have:). Nearly three inches of rain in an hour. I HAD to take a walk in the woods. I HAVE to do that sometimes....the walking, not normally the walk up to death and kick him in the ass to see if he's awake thing I did that afternoon....What an idiot!!
Life has humbled me some. In fact, the Lord has used this whipping stick called life to humble me a lot...and that's good... cuz I needz it! It started thundering when I got out of the truck and I was thinking about the verse that talks about the folly of looking at the weather and not planting a crop out of fear or uncertainty. I was thinking LIKE A MAN!! It ain't gonna rain! I NEED a freaking walk in the woods. I am gonna walk in the dang woods tuh-day! Don't give a flyin'.....well I just didn't care if rained and thundered and lightnined(yeah, I said lightnined) a lil'. I'm a GROWN man. I know lightning is dangerous, but so am I...if I don't get a little walk in the woods occasionally. Crap!!!! I can't believe it's thunderin' so bad....as I am walking off into the woods....at the highest point in my county.....
Well,....lets just say it was an experience I'll not soon forget. Afterwards, people talking about weather alerts going off and watching the radar go green, yellow, big yellow, red, big red, lots of little the little cute white lighting strikes on the screen. Well,.....lemme jus tell ya.....it ain't cute on the highest dang point in my county. I have literally ridden 12-16 foot swells in a 21' boat 20 miles from the nearest spot to build a sandcastle in the Gulf of Mexico; watched at least tennis/baseball size hail fall 3 feet away from me; watched a funnel cloud come out of a wall cloud literally on top of me, but I have never....never been that close to the real power of a storm. Close enough to feel open oven- door hot wind blow down from the south and then late fall cool air blow in from the east, and then moderate dry air blow from the west, and then do it all over again in another 5 minutes, all the while the land I am standing on go from dust to flowing current in less than 20 minutes, while boots fill with water flowing through clothes and down body, and thunder like your heads in a base drum with a Wildman flailing away and some smart-ass shooting Howitzer-like flashes of search-light bright intensity into your soul in rapid fire succession....lemme jus tell ya, it was an experience....
A little light rain, then massive drops that would have drowned a small rodent, then those drops in sheets in 50-60mph wind and then...light rain...then nearly no rain, then lightning so close you knew it hit you and you never knew heaven was so wet, and massive sheets again, then a letting up, a releasing feeling in your guts and you instinctively know its over...the worst is over...but the drops, the few drops are getting bigger...and now harder and jeez! did that hit me; it was ungraspably intensely, shockingly, shakingly, violent!! And the fear freckles come back out on your saturated plucked duck skin and God laughs again and your ear drums seem to bust and the flashes are coming slick quick and next-of-kin close and dang! is this ever gonna stop and ...
THIS, THIS is making me feel very,....very,....small, and very completely out of control at this juncture of my now sorry life. The first 20 minutes were man-talk cool! Out in the storm, big-talkin' water-cooler fodder.... I can...now...NOT MOVE for fear of making a worse mistake than I made when I walked away from the relative safety of my truck and its rubber tired ability to get me AWAY from this storm. I abandoned the ark. Way to go....
I have put myself in a very dangerous situation...on freaking purpose!!! WHY DO I DO THIS KIND OF CRAP!! Lord, my kids and wife. What am I doing!?....BOOM!! WHHHAAACK!! IF TREE FALLS beside you in the woods,.... YES! YOU FREAKING HEAR IT!!
Bottom line: Sometimes the storm just comes and sometimes you walk right into it cuz yooz da MAN! Sometimes it seems like it's gonna stop and then it doubles back, re-doubles intensity and really scares the HELL out of you cuz you thought it wuz over and it's just beginning...again....
Whatcha gonna do now BIG boy!?! Big dummy! Now?....Trust Him. It's not too late. You're not the first person to make a STUPID decision, get yourself into a big storm and them get to see Jesus show up.
I didn't get out of that storm, but HE got me through it. Truth?? I needed that storm and I need the real storms. The ones that leave scars and bought lessons, and "man, I'm never gonna do that again's.". I need 'em. I'm hard-headed and I need to learn to trust Him and the Spirit. Thick and thin, lean or fat, good or....oh, yeah! IF we love Him, and are called according to His purposes...it's never bad...It's all good.
Lesson learned....some of it....I hope.....
Don't fear the storm.....fear God....seek wisdom... one foot in front of the other...keep walking....trust Him...simple to say...tough to do....totally worth it, if we are doing for the right reasons...He promises...Do not grow weary in doing good...for in due season you will reap a harvest IF you do not give up. Galations 6:8-10
