Factual Friday!

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Welcome to the first of my new weekly blog feature, Factual Fridays! In an effort to add some regularity to my blog, I wanted to have a weekly entry that allowed you, my readers, to get to know me and what I’m interested in. My hope for Factual Fridays is to offer you a fact about me or a piece of trivia about something I’m interested in then expound on that in the rest of the entry.

A BIG thank you to my best friend and fellow blogger, Holly, for the inspiration for these posts. Check out her blog, Gypsy Feet, and her weekly feature, Music Mondays.

So here we go!

Fact: I have a hurricane tracking sheet and the list of names for 2009 in my cubicle at work. Whenever a Tropical Storm forms, I put it on the chart with its name and update it twice daily.

I can remember the moment that I fell in love with meteorology. I’m not sure where we were driving back from, but in the eighth grade I was riding in the car with my mom on our way home as the sun was setting. I remember looking out the window as the sun shone from behind a cloud and told my mom that it looked like God shining down on the world. (For those interested in the technical, scientific name of what I saw, they were crepuscular rays.)

Weather is so central to our lives. It’s the first thing we check in the morning before we get dressed, there’s an entire TV channel dedicated to it, and it’s a popular conversation topic. We plan our activities and weekends around it, pouring over the forecast for days in advance to see what’s going to happen. Believe me, I know. I’ve been watching this weekend’s forecast for the entire week. I rejoice every time the percent chance of rain for Saturday night drops (currently stands at 30%). Even the Bible is filled with stories of how weather impacted people’s lives (the Flood, storms on the Sea of Galilee, etc.).

But what if the weather is more insidious than it seems at first glance? And I’m not just talking about tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Awhile ago, this article from Boundless got me thinking. Here’s an excerpt (the entire article is great too!):

“You don't have to be an "angry person" to have a problem with anger. There's an anger of the garden variety that's often expressed through complaining, grumpiness, a cutting remark, sulking self-pity, and turbulent frustration.”

“Take commonplace complaints about the weather. Complaints about the excessive heat or cold can either be a form of small talk or a form of unbelief in God's good providence. We don't typically think of complaining as anger, but when framed with the providence of God we are pressed to consider our motives.”

Whoa. I know I have definitely complained about the weather before. Who hasn’t? But “a form of unbelief in God’s good providence”? Whoa.

If God wills it to be hot and muggy one day, who am I to argue with him by complaining? If He has decided a certain day should include thunderstorms that interfere with the plans I had, why should I not acknowledge that maybe He changed my plans for a purpose and a reason far beyond my understanding?

So while I will still be checking the forecast for this weekend and praying that it doesn’t interfere with our (outdoor) plans for Saturday night, I will try to remember that God is sovereign...even over the weather.