Warning! Tornado! Take Cover!

I’ve shared before that I love a storm.  I get excited at the first clap of thunder, the first flash of lightening, and the pounding rain.  I love walking in rain but I restrain myself in a thunder storm and keep myself inside.  It would be foolish to stroll about with thunder banging and lightening streaking across the sky.  It would be even more foolish to stroll about when warnings of tornadoes have been issued by the National Weather Service.  The warnings are there for our protection and safety.

Such was the case all through Christmas night.  The rain pelted the roof so hard that at times we could hardly hear each other talk.  The wind blew loudly and limbs were broken from trees.  Thunder was booming and rolling across the black sky.  Lightening would flash so brightly that for a second the black was gone and a seeming daylight appeared across the countryside.  Then came the sound of a freight train – only it wasn’t’ a train; it was a tornado.  Just a mile and half away it hit the properties of several of our friends.  How thankful we are that no one was hurt.  Things can be replaced.

What care we take when warnings of tornadoes are given.  Why do we ignore the same tornado warnings in our spiritual world?  When our loving Heavenly Father, whose goal is to keep us safe, issues warnings, clearly telling us what to do to avoid tornadoes of sin that will cause havoc and destruction in our lives, why do we ignore them and decide to take a stroll in the storm?  How foolish we can be.  We deliberately do something Father has warned us not to do; we then lose our inner peace, begin to feel distant from God, perhaps we get hurt, and then we dare to ask God – where were You?  Why didn’t You help me?

The proper questions to ask are:  Why didn’t we trust Father and obey Him?  Why did we go strolling in the storm of sin?  Why were we walking where limbs were breaking and crashing to the ground?  Why did we turn from God’s commands and do something so very foolish as to walk in a thunderstorm of sin?

Sometimes we are the very ones whispering lies to our own ears where sin is concerned. We tell ourselves, “I’m not cheating or lying or stealing or committing adultery or murder, so I’m doing okay.  God will bless me.”  How easily we blind ourselves when we choose to walk in the darkened storms of sin around us.  What is sin then, exactly?  It’s twofold:  It’s disobedience to God on any level, and it’s anything that knocks God off the throne of our lives.  Sin is always a storm and it always destroys.  It sends tornadoes that tear apart our inner joy and blows away our peace.

Good news.  If that’s you right now, you can get out of the storm today. You can pray right now the words in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  Father is waiting to forgive when we ask and to put us back on the right path; it’s the path of peace and goodness and great joy.  It’s the fun path!