Snow

When I first began to pastor, I served a rural church out by itself on a lonely blacktop road in Tennessee.  Snow was something that just didn’t happen much, and then one year that all changed.  We went through a series of what we came to call “wicked Wednesdays” and “sinister Sundays”.  We called off one worship service after another and prayed for Spring to come.

It was about that time that I discovered an interesting passage in the book of Job.  After a flurry of comments and arguments by Job and his fickle friends, God breaks the silence.  He overwhelms Job with question after question, basically convincing Job that he (nor any other human being) could ever understand all that God is up to.  There comes a time when you just have to trust that God is at work even if everything seems to scream that He is not involved.

In that kind of context God asks Job, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?” (Job 38:22-23). We have storehouses of salt to melt the snow, and God has storehouses of snow and hail – quite an image.  And it is an image – God is trying to help us understand that which is beyond our understanding, and so He calls upon us to look at snow as a way He combats – what?  He reserves these storehouses of snow and hail for times of trouble, for days of war and battle – what does that mean?

As I looked out my study window this week with the snow falling, I was intrigued by how everything had come to a halt.  We go ninety-to-nothing most of the time, and then a little thing like a snow flake stops it all.  Mighty eighteen wheelers slip and slide, and as the snow accumulates, we get stuck inside.  We talk about getting cabin fever, about going stir crazy, and about being bored.  Interestingly enough, some families reconnect, bake cookies, play board games, find new ways to entertain themselves.  We may pray for a sunny day, and we find ourselves longing for Spring.

In it all, I wonder if the battle being fought isn’t for our souls.  We squeeze God out with our busyness, we think we are so powerful with our technology, we believe nothing can stop us – and then a snow flake wakes us up.  A thin layer of ice reminds us of our own instability and frailty.  Being stuck inside forces us to acknowledge our dependency.  God doing battle, God waging a war, gently reminding us that He is God and we are far more frail than we will admit.

Maybe we need more snow.