Storms and their Domestic Rivers

I got caught in a storm this week. That day, I had gotten a good grade on a test and had a coffee-esque beverage to celebrate. (I say coffee-esque because it was mostly ice, milk, sugar, and caramel. Girly, I know. Don't judge me.) I had all of this extra energy that needed some gross-motor movement to release, so I went longboarding in an empty-ish parking lot on my school's campus.

Well, after a few minutes of realizing that the sun was blinding me, I was sorely out of shape, it was a bakajillion degrees, (yeah, that many) and that it just wasn't my day for longboarding, I headed over back towards the intracoastal to spend some time with my Maker. When I got settled in, sitting down on the wall that butts up against the waters, I noticed some disturbance upon the glassy surface. It looked like abnormally miniscule rain drops, but I couldn't feel them, so I wondered if they were just bubbles coming up from underneath. Besides, it was too sunny to rain.

And then, the flood.

As I realized the clouds were about to unload their contents upon my fleshy bod, I walked over to an awning next to an abandoned building, hoping that it would protect me from what I was thinking might be a timidly short shower. I was wrong on both counts. The awning was only about a 2 foot by 4 foot jut out of the wall, and the rain soon fell hard enough to drench my lower body, and I was stuck there, with nowhere to go for close to an hour. So I took off my soon-to-be inundated Vans and socks, guarded my Bible and notebook by sticking it between my back and the wall, and watched. I decided to "soak in" the moment. (C'mon, that was good.) Those crossing over the nearby bridge in their dry "Lexus cages" must have looked at this barefoot boy caught in the rain thinking that he was the one trapped.

But perhaps I was. The awning above me, not wanting to miss out on the sky's fun, also dripped rain down around it's edges, forming a cage around me, with bars made of a very simple molecular structure. What began as dry ground soon garnered a sheen of slickness across its surface, which then began to peel off the ground, tumbling and rolling to a lower valley, soon becoming a domestic river.

This building I was standing next to was only a few feet away from the water's edge, and I was able to see something I'd never remembered witnessing before: the water poured in waves, and I was able to see the pattern of the rain fall in what almost looked like currents. It was as if the planes of ocean and sky were connected by puppet strings filling in the gap, all under the command of the Great Puppeteer.

"What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!" (Matthew 8)

And what manner of man are we, that we disobey when all of creation can do nothing but bow in humble submission. Who are we hat we run up against this God, before Whom the mountains tremble and the seas part, and, with our finger in his face say, "No. I will not." Who are we, that we think we are anything but dust before his feet as He treads on the foot-rest that is His earth?

Who are we?

We are the ones this God paid everything for. So that the mountains of hate in our heart would crumble. So that our stormy seas of wretchedness would be calmed. So that we would submit.

And finally find joy.

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