It was a beautiful morning in Wisconsin and the last day of our spring break. I had some checks to deposit at the bank and, for the purpose of making small talk stated simply to the bank cashier, “It’s finally beginning to feel like spring.”
Flipping her way through the checks and handing me my deposit ticket, she replied, “We so deserve it.”
Her words haunted me. Does her mindset reflect the worldview of a great majority of people? We deserve getting good weather? “No,” I thought inwardly as I pulled away from the bank, “All we deserve is death in hell for all eternity.”
Sound narrow-minded to you? Pathetic? Largely pessimistic? It is the Book of Truth, God’s Word, that gives this perspective.
From Psalm 47, we learn “The LORD Most High is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.” Whether you realize it or not, God is your King. He gives you every breath you have and supplies every gorgeous day you experience. He numbers the hairs of your head (Psalm 139) and declares that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He is your Creator, the Sustainer of your life, and the One to Whom you will answer in Heaven.
I realized later that I should have remarked to the bank cashier, “God sure made a beautiful day, didn’t He?” God, in His graciousness, gave us beautiful weather that we as sinners do not deserve. She probably rarely, if ever, hears that perspective. But it is a perspective rooted in the pages of Scripture. In fact, not only weather but also natural disasters can come from the hand of the Lord. Psalm 46 declares, “Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations He hath made in the earth. He makes wars to cease unto the ends of the earth: He beaks the bow, and cuts the spear in sunder: He burns the chariot in the fire.”
Again, not a popular idea, that the God of the Universe allows, in fact makes, destructions in the earth. Was the damage in New Orleans due to our nation’s gross departure from the God of the Bible? Pat Robertson claimed it was and got all sorts of media flack as a result. But if God’s Word declares that our Righteous Judge, Who is your King to Whom you will answer, makes destructions on the earth, then we must believe that destructions can be caused by God.
On the flip side, God also makes wars to stop. Man can be credited with inventing the atomic bomb, which caused the Japanese to consider that continuing the war was not a good plan. But it was God Who caused World War 2 to cease.
Perhaps the huge devastation of the peach crop in the South by a sudden cold spell Easter weekend was not just “happenstance.” Could it be that our God to Whom we will give an account is seeking to show us our frailty? He designed us to be dependent—upon Him. He commands: “Be still and KNOW that I am God” and further explains why it is so essential for us to know Him as God: “I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
God loves you and would never force Himself upon you. He created you to be a volitional being, capable of deciding for yourself whether or not you will choose Him. He makes very clear: “God reigns over the heathen: God sits upon the throne of holiness” (Ps. 47:8). You can choose to believe the written account that God left for you to live by, or you can choose to reject it. As for me, I have chosen His Book, starting with the syllogism found in Romans 3:4--“Let God be true and every man a liar.”
Flipping her way through the checks and handing me my deposit ticket, she replied, “We so deserve it.”
Her words haunted me. Does her mindset reflect the worldview of a great majority of people? We deserve getting good weather? “No,” I thought inwardly as I pulled away from the bank, “All we deserve is death in hell for all eternity.”
Sound narrow-minded to you? Pathetic? Largely pessimistic? It is the Book of Truth, God’s Word, that gives this perspective.
From Psalm 47, we learn “The LORD Most High is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.” Whether you realize it or not, God is your King. He gives you every breath you have and supplies every gorgeous day you experience. He numbers the hairs of your head (Psalm 139) and declares that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He is your Creator, the Sustainer of your life, and the One to Whom you will answer in Heaven.
I realized later that I should have remarked to the bank cashier, “God sure made a beautiful day, didn’t He?” God, in His graciousness, gave us beautiful weather that we as sinners do not deserve. She probably rarely, if ever, hears that perspective. But it is a perspective rooted in the pages of Scripture. In fact, not only weather but also natural disasters can come from the hand of the Lord. Psalm 46 declares, “Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations He hath made in the earth. He makes wars to cease unto the ends of the earth: He beaks the bow, and cuts the spear in sunder: He burns the chariot in the fire.”
Again, not a popular idea, that the God of the Universe allows, in fact makes, destructions in the earth. Was the damage in New Orleans due to our nation’s gross departure from the God of the Bible? Pat Robertson claimed it was and got all sorts of media flack as a result. But if God’s Word declares that our Righteous Judge, Who is your King to Whom you will answer, makes destructions on the earth, then we must believe that destructions can be caused by God.
On the flip side, God also makes wars to stop. Man can be credited with inventing the atomic bomb, which caused the Japanese to consider that continuing the war was not a good plan. But it was God Who caused World War 2 to cease.
Perhaps the huge devastation of the peach crop in the South by a sudden cold spell Easter weekend was not just “happenstance.” Could it be that our God to Whom we will give an account is seeking to show us our frailty? He designed us to be dependent—upon Him. He commands: “Be still and KNOW that I am God” and further explains why it is so essential for us to know Him as God: “I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
God loves you and would never force Himself upon you. He created you to be a volitional being, capable of deciding for yourself whether or not you will choose Him. He makes very clear: “God reigns over the heathen: God sits upon the throne of holiness” (Ps. 47:8). You can choose to believe the written account that God left for you to live by, or you can choose to reject it. As for me, I have chosen His Book, starting with the syllogism found in Romans 3:4--“Let God be true and every man a liar.”
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