As I walked to work this morning all bundled up and looking at the ice everywhere, I thought about how frozen our little world has been this past weekend. And the more I thought, the more I realized what a great lesson God was trying to teach me.
This past weekend Ruston, Louisiana experienced some weather that we are not quite used to. It was a wintery bliss! We had heard that it might snow which, for us Louisianians, was something unique and cool and definitely something to get excited about. But it didn't turn out the way that we had all thought it would. We all expected snow everywhere so we could play like we were 7 years old again. But instead everything was frozen. It even felt like time was frozen.
We woke up Sunday morning to find out that church was cancelled. I was slightly bummed, but decided to enjoy the "snow day" anyways. Calls from parents convinced most of my friends and me to stay off the roads and just wait out the weather. There was ice everywhere and since we aren't used to it we just sat at home and waited...and waited on the snow. A whole day of games, movies, an hour with no electricity, cooking, cleaning, building forts(don't judge; we had to act like 7 year olds somehow), and sleeping, and there was still no snow. School was cancelled the next day. All of us students we ecstatic! So we continued to wait on the snow. So another day of stopped time. Tyring to find something to do all day and feeling like it passed in a slow moment. And not until the very end of our second snow day could we look up to the sky and see little white flurries falling down on our faces. And when I say little, I mean little. And it didn't last long. We waited and waited and finally got what we wanted, and to be honest it was slightly disappointing.
There are two lessons I learned from this winter weather that I experienced this past weekend. The first I didn't realize until I started writing this. Waiting. Waiting on something that is so disappointing. Sometimes I think we spend way too much time waiting. I waited two whole days being bored and stuck in my apartment for this snow. I wanted so badly for it to snow so I could experience my dream of what a real snow day was, but when it did snow, it was disappointing. In life we spend so much time wasted on waiting for things of this world that in the end won't be satisfying. Think about it. An simple example is rollercoasters. We wait in line for an hour to get on the coolest rollercoaster at an amusement park and next thing ya know it is over. It may have been fun while it lasted, but then it ended. It satisfied you while you were on the rollercoaster but then you wanted to go on another or go again. It wasn't completely satisfying. The only thing that is worth waiting for and is completely satisfying is God. Life in eternity with God is completely worth it. So this makes me think. What do I spend my time invested in that is either waiting or unsatisfying? How could I remold my life to be waiting and preparing myself for the only thing that matters...eternity in heaven with God. On judgement day I would much rather have spent my time preparing for Christ's return and furthering the kingdom of God than thinking back and being reminded of all of those times that I wasted my life waiting on temporary and worldly things that were unsatisfying. Wow....this first lesson has blown my mind. I think it is definitely time to reevaluate some priorities in my life.
The second lesson is the one that I thought of as I walked to work today. Everything is still frozen in Ruston and it just made me think of what lessons God could be teaching me. And this is what He reminded me of. God has the power to do anything. He even has the power to freeze. Freeze time and freeze this world. God froze my little college town this weekend(as well as many other places). Frozen. Everything stood still. Why? I don't know. I rarely understand why God does what He does.(Proverbs 3:5b) Maybe it was just to teach me this lesson. He needed my life to be frozen to remind me that there are times when I need to be still and know that He is God. I overlook how important this aspect of my relationship with Christ is. And God always does something radical like freezing the world as I know it to remind me of this. God could freeze my world in a more radical way at any moment and I need to be aware of His power to do this. God is so powerful so why don't I spend more time in awe of Him? Why don't I spend more time still and knowing that He is the God of my life? Just something to think on.
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." -Psalm 46:10
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