Howdy!
Been a while. Glad to be back. For me it is always an interesting moment when school returns. While my last two youngin’s are in middle and high school now the church being across from our neighbor Bethany Elementary means that this is a busy day for me as well. I get used to the summer lull especially when it comes to traffic. Having to navigate parents dropping their children off in the morning takes some reminder of the need for patience and leaving a little earlier to miss the rush. Ordinarily I usually arrive around 7am. Mornings are my favorite time of day. The rising with the sun gives me energy and focus and allows me to get stuff done. I see my calling as a pastor to be up and moving and taking advantage of the time I have. What the apostle would call redeeming the time. Not everybody has the same excitement for early hours, and I appreciate that. I go to bed at like 9:00pm when many are just getting into their groove. One of the beauties of the world as God has made it is that we are all different. Diversity of this kind is truly the spice of life. Yet, when it comes to thinking about the world as God has made it there is more to be said and thought of. For today’s Tuesday devotion we are going to think more on this matter of the Lord, His providential order, and how the creation itself testifies to His wisdom.
As we begin the book of Jonah on Sunday mornings at Bethany we are brought face-to-face with the power of the sea. Most of you (including our family) went to the beach during the summer break. One of my favorite parts of sitting in the sand among the warmth of the sun is hearing the waves crash. That sound is for sure soothing in its own way and yet also is a keen reminder that there is not much separating the depths of the ocean and my balcony. I have an acquaintance who is in Indonesia in 2004 during the Boxing Day tsunami. They went from enjoying a peaceful day at the water’s edge to a nightmare of unimaginable terror. As I noted yesterday the Jonah mariners were men who made their life on the sea. They had seen storms before. Yet, there was a type of intensity in this cyclone that they had never seen in their lives. I don’t think it was actually the wind and waves itself that gave them pause. You can tell that they feel the anger of the LORD in the storm. We can as supposedly enlightened folks of the twenty-first century believe and act as if they were merely being superstitious in their calling out to their gods, but I think there was something more going on here. Human beings are made to be religious. Men and women of all stripes call out to their idol in times of trial. The old saying about there not being an atheist in a foxhole can be brought out to the reality of dealing with the immediate shock of the storm which comes without warning. So what are we to do in the face of such abrupt devastation?
In closing, the question we need to ask ourselves is the same thing these sailors come to realize rather quickly when their gods fail. What is it about Jehovah that calms the rain and the torment? It is the fact He controls these things. They rise and fall at His command. What other deity can make this claim? I recently took my son to see The Odyssey and Zeus can only talk to Poseidon to keep the sails pinned to the shore. He has no real authority over him. We are blessed to know that as we see the disciples realize in Matthew 8:27 we serve the God who, “. . . that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”. There is peace and comfort in the sure and certain word that as the Psalmist testifies in Psalm 107:25, “For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea.” that is represented in the mariner’s invocation of the blessed covenant name of God, which is shown as LORD in our bibles. They learn of His power, and of His grace, and of His love for all men. Let us give thanks in our praise, just as they did, for His sovereign control over the whole of creation.
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church
