A reflection on meteorology and eternity

Forty-seven American tourists are missing today following flash flooding that occurred at 8:30 a.m. local time in Nepal. They are among a “preliminary” toll of at least 341 missing people, according to a statement by the Nepal Tourism Board.

In other weather news, a wildfire west of Fort Worth, Texas, has burned eighty thousand acres at this writing and is only 12 percent contained. I have been watching it closely because it is close to a chapel our ministry supports, and that is close to my heart.

Mark Twain noted, “Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.” He is often credited as well with the observation, “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever seems to do anything about it.”

I am writing today to complain about the weather, and to decide what to do about it as well.

Meteorology and my morning walk

My morning walk was impaired today by meteorologists. I consulted the Weather Channel app, the AccuWeather app, and the app from our local news station. All were in adamant agreement that it would begin raining in forty-five minutes. So I altered my routine, got outside in the dark, and shortened my walk by half. Of course, not a drop of rain fell this morning.

This happens often enough to be a pattern worth considering, not because I can redo this morning, but because I plan to walk again tomorrow morning. What if the same thing happens? What can I learn from today that applies to tomorrow?

It seems to me that I have three options.

One is to assume nefarious intent on the part of the meteorologists whose predictions misled me. They knew there would be no rain, but they wanted to intrude on my morning walk and routine. To choose this option, I would need to learn who made these faulty predictions, analyze their character and motives, and decide if they are likely to mislead me on purpose again.

A second option is to assume incompetence on the part of the meteorologists and their technology. They weren’t wrong about a prediction regarding thirty days from now, but thirty minutes from now. Clearly, their technology is not up to par, and/or those using it are not good at their jobs. To choose this option, I would need to familiarize myself with meteorological equipment and science, and then evaluate these three platforms in light of what I learn.

A third option is to assume that they are doing the best they can with what humans can do regarding the weather. Their technology and methods are the best available, but people simply cannot know with certainty what Mother Nature will do even in the next thirty minutes. To choose this option, I would first need to investigate the first two.

“Imagine yourself as a living house”

When God disappoints us, it may seem that we have the same three options to consider. He acted or did not act with nefarious intent; he is not the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God we think he is; or even that God cannot know the future. The third option may seem strange to you, but “open theists” believe it to be the case, arguing that the future is by definition unknowable even to God.

I wrote this article to suggest a fourth option. Unlike meteorologists whose only job is to predict the weather accurately, our Father has an eternal purpose in mind with each action he takes or does not take in the present. His ultimate purpose is not our happiness, but our holiness. He wants to conform his children to the character of his Son (Romans 8:29).

As a result, he sometimes works in our lives in ways that disappoint us, not because he is being cruel or cannot do better, but because he is preparing us in this world for the next. We are like stones being shaped by a stonemason on the ground to fit into a cathedral spire high in the sky.

In this context, I often think of a parable by George MacDonald that CS Lewis quoted:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to?

The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.

“Sanctification is glory begun”

With respect to my intellectual mentor, I would adjust Lewis’s parable by one observation: your Father has already come to live in your “house.” His Spirit made your body his temple in the moment of your conversion (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Accordingly, he knows you from the “inside out” and is working internally and externally to “sanctify you completely” so that “your whole spirit and soul and body [will] be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Our part is to participate in this renovation as the Spirit leads. This begins by yielding the “house” to him each day as each day begins (Ephesians 5:18), then by listening as he speaks to us through Scripture, circumstance, and his intuitive voice. What he leads us to do, we do; what he leads us to stop doing, we stop doing.

Unlike a meteorologist whose work begins and ends with the day’s weather, our Father’s daily actions are all a means to his eternal ends. As the great biblical scholar FF Bruce noted,

“Sanctification is glory begun. Glory is sanctification completed.”

How will you take your next step into such glory today?

 

 

Denison Forum