One Thing After Another

Sky black with clouds

Heavy rain 

Great and powerful wind

Earthquake

Fire

These words, with one exception, could well describe a few of the highlights of recent days in my drought-weary community. We could also add heat advisory, evacuation warning, road closures, flash flood warning and power outage.

Only I didn’t cull the above list from Cal Fire reports dropping in my inbox or NOAA weather reports, though I checked them several times a day.

Nope.

Those words didn’t come from the story of my week, though they do fit (except for the earthquake, which no one is sad about). The truth is, the story of my week led me to those words. Led me right to a story in 1 Kings.

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the Rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

A week like we just went through around here gave me a new feeling of kinship for the beleaguered old prophet who lived through that scene.

Maybe he didn’t experience the fear of evacuation or the inconveniences of power outages, but here was a man who, in the days before the worst of that weather display, had gone through three years of drought, a campfire competition far beyond any Eagle Scout’s merit badge experiences, and a foot race under a sky black with clouds and a heavy rain.

As if this were not enough, poor Elijah then embarked on a forty-day run for his life into the wilderness. And, somewhere in there, he also suffered a brief bout with depression, which, who could blame him?

Weather words may be what brought Elijah’s list to mind last week, but the thing that compelled me to open my Bible and read 1 Kings 17-19 were the words I knew came after the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Who would expect that? Who would expect a gentle whisper to take center stage in that drama of wind and fire?

Unexpected words are often what transform a list into a story.

So it is in the stories I live. When one terrifying thing comes after another, I can choose to make a list that weighs me down and drowns out the gentle whisper of God or I can look for the unexpected. I can open my eyes, mind and heart to story.

Elements of Story

Let’s do that now with another list. This one consists of four elements considered necessary to every good tale.

Setting

Characters

Conflict

Resolution/Transformation

On weeks when conflicts in the shape of firestorms, thunderstorms pandemic-, political-, or relationship-storms show up in my story to transform my occasional Garden of Eden settings into vicious wilderness, I struggle to sense the presence of God. These conflicts too quickly turn me into an unimpressive character huddled in shelters too flimsy to save anyone.

Perhaps, that is because so many things I don’t know are set against the things I do know. And unknowns shout loud.

I don’t know if the hurricane heading my direction will blow the wildfire toward my home or away from it.

I don’t know if said hurricane will quench the blaze or bring on flash floods or (who knew this was even possible?) both.

What I do know doesn’t always even make sense of what I don’t, either.

For though the Bible clearly states God is ever-present, I am told in Elijah’s story that God was not in the wind or earthquake or fire.

From that same source, I know God is love. So why did Jesus sleep through the storm when all along he had only to command stillness from the wind and waves for the sake of his terrified boatmates?

Then again, the disciples had Christ with them right there in the boat, but they did not sense God’s presence in their storm any more than Elijah did in his. Perhaps, no more than I see God’s presence in the fiercest middle of my storms.

For even though the all-powerful God has said He is with me always, both in His word and in so many of my personal stories, I often look for comfort and safety in lesser things like favorable weather forecasts and positive fire-status reports.

This messy mix of knowns and unknowns appears as inconsistency and does not line up tidily in a list. Instead it asks me to sit in the mystery of story. To sit and watch and wait and trust the Author.

Stories in Real Life

However much I prefer stories to lists as a reader, that doesn’t always transfer to the stories I live. Though in theory, I want my character transformed, there’s never a time when I welcome a disturbance in my pastoral setting. I don’t want conflict. Not in my real life.

Only, without disturbances, sorrows, and struggles, how can one live in the wide wonder and mystery of story?

So, I look at my conflicts against man, nature, and self through a story lens, knowing resolution and transformation are on their way.

And in the storm-tossed minutes and hours and days when I don’t remember?

I have found that, by and by, a gentle voice shows up to remind me.

Whatever your setting today, whatever your conflicts, I pray you will know His strong and gentle love in the story He has written.