...and the thunder rolled!

I awakened to thunder this morning and since it's Friday and I did not have the usual 'stuff' to do before I left for work, I laid in bed for just a few more minutes and remembered some of the dozens of mornings I've awakened to the roar of thunder coming from outside my tent. I recalled the many times I've gotten caught outside in a wilderness environment with an impending thunderstorm... lightning, hail, wind, flooded stream crossings. This particular photo was taken in Ontario on an early autumn fishing trip...where blue skies changed to angry clouds in a matter of ten minutes. No, we did not get back to camp before it hit.

Yesterday my classes were watching a Discovery video about the evolution of early man and it depicted a group of early hominids dancing in the rain. The narrative said that gorillas are the only modern primate to do such. I beg to differ. No I hate being cold and wet, but then I love the opportunity to dry around the warmth of a fire or dive into the shelter of a small tent that is being assaulted by wind and hail. There is an awesome power observed and absorbed from watching a developing thunderstorm from the shelter of a seventy foot pine or from the exposure of a high altitude plateau.

Whatever the situation, I've found that good planning and good rain gear go hand in hand. I remember in earlier years some times when neither of those factors came into play. I also recall the resolve to 'never place myself in those circumstances again'. Live and learn.

Well there is great analogy in all of this. Life also has its thunderstorms ... and in retrospect, they are usually welcome. Although disruptive, they quench the drought and provide water for future use. Often destructive, they offer the glimpse of power behind the storm ... that same power that provides new life after the storm has passed. And yes, looking outside now - the storm has passed ... there is still the rolling of distant thunder as if GOD is looking over his shoulder to say, "Well, what did you think about that one?!!"

The robins are singing as they are already harvesting flooded earthworms.

Thank you Father.

"Thy kingdom come ...

I suppose if I were studying the Lord's prayer I would start at the beginning, but I'm not ... so I won't. I have recited this prayer for over fifty years now. At first it was a short cut - if I felt the need to prayer, I could do it almost without thinking. As with anything repetitive, it begins to take effect and have influence. For at least the past fifteen years, reciting this prayer has become a part of our church liturgy, as the entire congregation recites it. It continues to take on new meaning.

"Thy kingdom come ..." I think I am asking that GOD take over my own kingdom. Reading John Eldredge's Fathered by GOD I was reminded that one of the stages of a man's development is as the king...king of your own family, assumption of leadership - at work or at church. My kingdom is my sphere of influence. Some folks have larger kingdoms than others. Some kingdoms overlap and envelop entire countries. If GOD infiltrated all those kingdoms by request ... this prayer would be answered. He will anyway - at some point in time. I just keep asking that it be sooner than later, but like the 'prayer of Jabez' - I ask only for my kingdom...that's all I've got.

On the other hand, GOD's kingdom already includes the earth, a small parcel of his universe - a grain of sand of the beach of a galaxy of beaches ... and yet he has such great love for that grain of sand that he created and it's inhabitants that he allowed, no he planned, that He himself would become human and live in a small part of that grain of sand so that His kingdom could come...His will would be done. "On earth as it is in Heaven..." almost seems redundant - of course His will is done! His sphere of influence has no boundaries and his will is going to be done, though interrupted and resisted by many, he will have his way. So I just ask that I may be a small part of His will - His kingdom - and as we ask corporately ... His kingdom is fulfilled in my kingdom... and my kingdom becomes larger because I invited him.