Tracking Hurricanes

Growing up in South Louisiana, you learn things you don't necessarily learn everywhere else. Some of it is practical experience, like what size alligator you can hit with your car and it not do damage. How fast a water moccasin can swim in flood waters. What is a  nutria exactly?(Google it; so nasty!) One of the things you learn in school is how to track hurricanes on a tracking map. Now, I was lucky that I've never experienced a major hurricane, but like you, I have seen the devastation that a hurricane can do. In the last few months, the US has seen out breaks of tornadoes that have done massive damage to people and property.  When viewing the aftermath of one of these storms, I would dare say it is impossible to not be awed at the power of wind.

The last few weeks we've been exploring God's character. We've looked at the attributes that make Him who He is, but we won't have a complete picture of who God is until we look at His capabilities.
 

The next three things we are going to study are just as much a part of God as his love, they cannot be moved or changed. As we dig I hope you come to a fuller understanding of who God is and a deeper appreciation of His loving character. For if God was not loving and still had the powers that He does, life on this earth would not be worth living.

The first capability of God we are going to look at is His omnipotence, or His absolute power. Interestingly, you will not find the word "omnipotent" anywhere in the Bible. However, the idea that God is all powerful is everywhere in the Bible, from the names we use for Him to the actions that are recorded. In Revelation 19:6, the apostle John records the praise of Heaven itself,

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns."

If we travel all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 17:1 God's name for Himself is the same,

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless."

How powerful must you be to be able to tack "Almighty" to the end of your name? What would your criteria be? To me, if someone has all the power then 1) no one else can change what they've done , and 2) there is nothing that is not under their control. Does God really meet these requirements? In Isaiah 43:13 God speaks to the first.

Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?"

The Book of Job follows the story of a man through the trouble in his life. Right now we're not going to get off topic and explore Job's suffering, but His response to what he is going through hits the center of God's power. Let's pick up in Job 9:3-12

Though one wished to dispute with him,
he could not answer him one time out of a thousand.

His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.
Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?
He moves mountains without their knowing it
and overturns them in his anger.
He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.
He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
he seals off the light of the stars.
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
miracles that cannot be counted.
When he passes me, I cannot see him;
when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.
If he snatches away, who can stop him?
Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?'

Job is going through some serious stuff. He's lost all his possessions, his children, and his health. The only thing he has left are a nagging wife that tells him to "curse God and die", and some friends who keep asking what he did to make God so angry. Now be honest, would this be your first response? It seems that we have no problem getting angry at God and demanding answers. Job, however, had an accurate view of who God is and who Job is. God is the Creator. He does things that I cannot. He is so far above me that I couldn't seriously question Him.

In the Old Testament, the idea of God being Spirit was not just to describe the nature of His physical being. The idea of God being Spirit was directly linked to the idea of air in motion. This does speak to God not being a "physical" being, but it also speaks to limitless power. We began by talking about hurricanes and tornadoes. Though we can't see the wind, that doesn't mean we can ignore it's power. Next to God being "Spirit", mankind is labeled as "flesh", which contrasts our impotence with God's omnipotence. If we turn back to Isaiah and look in 31:3 we see the comparison in Isaiah's own words,

But the Egyptians are men and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
he who helps will stumble,
he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.

God's power is as strong as the hurricane, but it is also as prevalent as the still air around us. Just because we can't see the air moving, that doesn't mean we suffocate. Just because we can't see God's hand moving that doesn't mean He doesn't exist. My second criteria was that to be "Almighty" there is nothing that is not under their control. The writer of Psalm 135 speakes to this in verse 6,

The LORD does whatever pleases him,
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths.

If you scroll back up and look at Job's statement, you can see the same idea. Another psalmist put it this way in Psalm 65:5-7,

You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,
O God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas,
who formed the mountains by your power,
having armed yourself with strength,
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.

God not only created the world, He retains control over it. I've made a point these last few weeks to link God with Jesus. The reason behind this is too many people want to flip through the Bible and then declare that Jesus was just a good teacher. I want you to see that not only did Jesus say He was God's Son, Jesus also proved it. So with that in mind, it's story time. In the book of Mark, we find Jesus teaching beside the Sea of Galilee. The way I read it, Jesus spends all day telling parables trying to teach people spiritual truths by using illustrations from everday occurences. Let's pick up with Jesus and the disciples at the end of the day; Mark 4:35-41 reads,

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."   Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

Let's pause the story and clarify a few things. First, a good number of the disciples in this boat were fisherman that had fished on the this particular sea all their lives. This was not John Doe from down the road, who got a wild hare to rent a boat, got out to sea and then capsized the thing because he didn't know what he was doing. These guys had no doubt been caught in storms before, but this one scared them. They were sure that they were going to drown if it didn't stop soon. Second, the Sea of Galilee is about 8 miles across. Now a modern sailboat that is 30 feet in length will travel about 8 miles an hour. If you do the math, then you see that for us today, it would take us an hour to cross under optimal conditions. So if they were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, it would take them about 30 minutes to reach shore. That seems like plenty of time to you and I. We can see a storm coming a long way off and act accordingly right? Maybe or maybe not. I found this video on Youtube that gives you a twenty minute time-elasped video of a storm coming in on the Sea of Galilee. It moves fast!

Personally, I'd have been scared out of my mind. Let's continue on with the story.

 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

 Don't miss the last verse...the disciples were terrified. By this point, they had seen Jesus heal people who were sick. They had even seen people possessed by demons cured. Did you catch that? They heard demons inside a person holler and scream. But this display on the water surpassed everything else. Let's be honest for a second; Doctors can heal people. Religious leaders can cast out demons. But what person fusses at the wind and it stops? Which one of us can stand in front of a hurricane and make it dissapate with  the power of their voice. Who do you know that can turn a tornado with their finger? You better believe I'd be trying to get on His good side. "Hey Jesus...Uh you want the last piece of fish?!? Carry your cloak?" But seriously, these disciples had been to the synagogue. It's no doubt that they had heard Psalm 65 read on a Sabbath day. For someone to do what only God can do...it boggles the mind.

Let's take a moment and filter this through all that we've talked about the last few weeks. Take God's character traits and then add the fact that He is all powerful. When you stop and think about it, it's a good thing. God's omnipotence allows Him to work His love in our lives without it being contradicted. If God was not all powerful, could He really save us from our sins? Would He have been able to crossover into our world as a man to bring us redemption? Maybe He could have still done it, but even then we would be in a constant state of wondering if it would last. How secure would you feel in your spiritual walk if God might be bested at some point? Without God's power, we wouldn't have hope.

On the other side of the coin, what would this world be like if God was all powerful, but wasn't the definition of love? If you've ever read any Greek mythology, that gives you a small taste of what God would be like. He would be vengeful all the time. One slight against Him and we would be punished or killed. He would be fickle, turning whichever way He felt. He might even be malicious, hurting us just because He can. Some people will read this and say that God is malicious. They would tell me to look at the world and explain how a loving God could either do these things or let these things happen. Why do children starve in Africa? Why are houses flooded in the US? Why do earthquakes shake the Pacific Ocean? If God was loving and all powerful, wouldn't he fix this? My response to their question is...do you really want God to explain or do you just want an excuse to ignore Him? If you just want to have an excuse, I invite you to go find a chat room to air your frustrations out. But if you really want to know, let's turn to Romans  8:18-25 and look at the hard reality.

The apostle Paul is writing to the Christians living in Rome. The passages before this one are concerned with sin and salvation. He talks of faith and joy. He talks about the future glory we have waiting for us but then He promises that even Christians will suffer. But suffering is not the end.

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. 21 All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don't need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently. NLT

I switched to the New Living Translation for this passage so it would be a little easier to read. Verse 19-22 show us that with the entrance of sin into the world, everything got a little messed up. The truth is, we are reason there are hurricanes and tornadoes. We are the reason it floods. It's our fault that there are droughts in Africa and people starve to death. Listen closely, I am not saying that these people did something to deserve what happened to them. I'm saying that the sin of humanity has put a curse on the natural world. Look at it this way; when a preschooler has an accident and uses the bathroom on themselves, you can take off the wet pants and underwear. You can even put on new clothes. But the smell will not go away until they get a bath. I hope that this is not too crass for some of you,  but it rings true to me. God tells Adam in Genesis 3:17-19

"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

The earth was cursed. It doesn't functon the way that God intended it to. Someone peed in the pool. The good news is, if you keep reading  Romans 8:23-24, there is hope. But to have that hope you must be one of His children. God has punished us all for the sin of mankind. But He promises He will clean us up if we let Him. He promises us that not only will He fix what is wrong, He'll also return it to its perfect state.

I pray that the idea of God's omnipotence brings you joy as it does me. It is one of the keys that unlocks hope. But if you can't find joy in this, or if you don't have hope, I encourage you to ask yourself if you can be counted as one of His children. The steps to finding peace with God are easy. Take a moment and click on the first post of this blog and find out how. 

All scripture taken from the New International Version unless other wise noted.