It's Funny What We Celebrate and What We Dread...

I know it’s not snowing this year — like I wish it would at least a little😜🙃 — but it seems that even though there is still a very common theme across social media…

A few years ago I began to notice that there seems to be this narrative of literal hatred of the weather... specifically the winter.

Now, please know that I understand everyone has preferences, and there is nothing wrong with that at all! I also fully grasp that winter weather makes road safety an issue and that dreary seasons can give way to a dreary spirit that sunshine generally lifts us from. I want to go deeper than that, though...

As Christians we sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness”

“Summer and winter and springtime and harvest. Sun, moon and stars in their courses above. Join with all nature in manifold witness. To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love”

BUT deep in our hearts — and unashamedly out loud on Facebook — we have stipulations and conditions on things like the weather.

We claim to join with the multitudes in Heaven praising God for whatever He has allowed, but then we nurse our sullenness publicly with the choir of this world that is social media, singing praise to our pitifulness.

We've even gone far enough to give Satan credit for storms — publicly rebuking them in Jesus name — forgetting the Father is in COMPLETE control of the weather. We are just wish list praying...based on our preferences and not Him.

Let’s reframe our thinking, because this is about so much more than weather. It’s about a discontented Spirit that every single one of us can fall into, and we’ve begun to adopt a very worldly narrative that something is owed to us.

Jesus came to do the will of the Father, and when we became Christians, we agreed to adopt the same mind as Christ. Praise God for His patience, but there’s work to be done!

I guess along the way I thought there would be a point we would just balance everything and then stay in that regulated plain of everyday life. However, I’ve come to understand that there will never be a time when our home is not in a season of change. We will always be navigating through something.

Even with that knowledge, though, the winds of these seasons are not always enjoyable. There are exciting and inviting moments, but also uncomfortable and even unbearable ones...to the point that I hole up in my self-pity and laziness, I isolate and procrastinate.

Which, if we were to call a spade a spade...this is me CELEBRATING my lack of faith and trust in God, and I can promise you that my aroma has been, at times, UNpleasing to Him because I am just all about me!

GOD HOWEVER...in all of His faithfulness, has once again drawn my heart back to Noah. There’s just so much good about God here!!

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In Genesis 8, God tells him to bring his family out of the ark after WAITING for God to complete His righteous work — that had to seem like an eternity!!

I can only imagine what it felt like, even with all of the beautiful animals and birds coming out around him, it had to be overwhelming as he took in all of the devastation the flood had brought, as well as all that it would require of him and his family going forward.

Y’all, his next humble, obedient move....It moves me. BUT GOD...HIS RESPONSE...Well, it completely changes me! READ IT!!

"Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Gen 8:20-22

God, in all of His mercy made the commitment to all of the generations coming after to never allow that level of flood again. He also promised to always provide work and food, morning and night...sunshine and snow.

Thus, whether we understand or agree with His literal or figurative allowances of these seasons, His perfect nature and plan has to be enough to satisfy our souls!!!

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Are you in a season of simply hating the season?! Is your reaction to that a celebration based on self-pity, and a feeling of entitlement to a better season?

Or even deeper...Are you in a season of change where the winds are unbearable, the view is devastating, and it is hard to accept that God may have actually allowed this?

Either way...Friend, I understand! I get it!!! But even more...God sees you, and your reaction is not new or shocking to Him!! His love and patience for you is greater than we comprehend!

With that, remember that it is He alone that can pour out that satisfaction, and generate from you the aroma that is pleasing to Himself, BUT your time today in reading and in worship are essential in this season. Also, your commitment to join with the Bride of Christ is irreplaceable!!

Just like Noah, we have to make it a point to "build an altar" privately and in collective worship, submitting our emotions and thoughts — that are technically wilder than the weather if we are honest😆 — to Him.

It's in that space we learn to celebrate Him above all…no matter what! From there we find value in every single season…even the bad weather. So much so that we really do "join with all nature in manifold witness to His great faithfulness, mercy and love!!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERSvHnBbU4Y