BY DAWN REED
We are having some crazy weather this week. Extreme heat warnings are in every forecast. It is supposed to be a bajillion degrees today and just the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. We practically need sunscreen to get to the car.
Our friend Corey said it feels like soup outside. He is not wrong.
Before this heat wave, it rained for days and days. Flood warnings were announced all over. We watched and prayed. Part of that was for the Lord’s protection of eastern Kentucky. We had massive flooding last year. Thankfully, our area missed it, but Madison, Cumberland, Clinton, Metcalfe, and Bullitt counties were hit hard.
Praying for protection for any part of the U.S. or the world when they experience flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other catastrophes is a good idea. (Many of us are praying for Venezuela since their double earthquake last week.)
We get our weather forecasts from countless sources: TV, the internet, social media, phone apps. During the 1970s and rotary phones, there was a number we dialed that gave the time and the weather report.
James Pollard Espy is recognized as the first official meteorologist, appointed by the United States government in 1842.
Jim Cantore, from The Weather Channel, is a well-known meteorologist today. He is also a storm tracker, usually reporting from the very center of the current catastrophe.
Al Roker is probably the second most famous weatherman ever, reporting for decades on NBC’s The Today Show.
This morning heading to work, breathing the already hot air, I pondered the very first and most famous weatherman. A guy extremely familiar with storms and life-changing flooding: Noah.
Did he go to the window every morning and say, “Looks like more rain today, folks, with a strong chance of thunderstorms. Make sure you take your umbrella.” Was he even able to check?
The older I get, the more respect I have for Noah’s perseverance. First, for pressing on as he built the ark, the courage to get on the ark, and then the resolve he showed for staying on the ark. Surely, he had wanted to jump off a time or two. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, but they were on the ark for a year.
Lots of wild weather is reported in the Bible. There was rain and then there was no rain and drought – for years (Genesis 41, 1 Kings 17-18). There was thunder and lightning over Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16), a day the sun stood still (Joshua 10), great wind that parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14), a huge storm and fish in the book of Jonah, darkness and an earthquake when Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27). Those are only a few.
Jeremiah 10:12-13 shares: “But God made the earth by His power; He founded the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding. When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from His storehouses.”
No matter what weather comes, we can always trust the Creator who is still in charge.