On Blizzards and Temptations

Everyone in these parts has “THE blizzard” in mind this weekend.

We have some pretty good meteorologists and forecasting capabilities today. Gone are the forecasts we used to poke fun at: If it doesn’t keep raining we could see sun by late afternoon. 🙂 We had plenty of warning on this storm. I awoke yesterday morning to find a new,  sound-dampening blanket of quiet white had fallen overnight.  The forecast said the second more serious wave of the storm was several hours away,  so It was easy to put off clearing the driveway and walks. I drove over the snow on my way out, and smiled at the extra slip-slide coming back into the driveway a couple hours later (the end of our drive gets plowed IN by the county snowplows). After a donut & coffee with Brenda we took a few minutes to survey our situation, thankful we had the time to prepare. There’s gas enough for the snow-blower, anything else we need? OK, let’s go get a few things from the grocery store (the closest one, it’s drifting pretty good) and then we’ll be ready to say “Bring it on”.

Is this the blizzard of the century coming? I thought to myself, The whole world is in this store! The blizzard’s all anyone is talking about, it seems, and some act like theirs is the only family that will survive. What would we have done a hundred and fifty years ago?

Ever have those times when your mind hops from A to B to C to DEF and lands on G? That’s what mine did yesterday. It started on B for Blizzard and landed on T – Temptation.

A hundred and fifty years ago (pre-electricity) storms came without warning. If you lived in the country you stretched a rope from the kitchen door to the barn and to the outhouse each Autumn and you kept them there till Spring, because one never knew if the flakes beginning to fall were the beginning of a beautiful blanket or a life-threatening blizzard. You left the ropes up, kept a food reserve on hand and restocked the firewood bin to the top all winter, just in case.

That’s how I need to approach temptation. I would SO welcome a crawler across the bottom of my monitor – The National Spirituality Service has issued a Vulnerability Warning for Ransom County until 11:30 am CST. Pride storms accompantied by high emotions will move into the area at 8:30 am with potential pride-falls of 10 – 12 inches by noon. If you venture into this storm you place your spiritual health at risk.

I’d PAY for a service like that! As nice as it would be, I’ve not seen it in God’s catalog.  Apparently He wants me to be on the alert for temptation the old-fashioned way; ongoing preparedness.

But I’m grateful for technology and ample warning about the weather, especially when it comes to blizzards.

Selah—

— PLR —