Tornado Season!

Well… PRAISE THE LORD!  It looks like we made it through another TORNADO SEASON here in Tennessee.  I guess I should be pretty relieved as our TORNADO horns in Mt Juliet only went off once about a month or so ago… in the middle of the night… of course!

That was an interesting experience for me, as it was my first TORNADO adventure in Tennessee.  This season was quite a bit calmer here then when I lived in Oklahoma.  The actual storm that triggered our sirens though, wasn’t much different than an Oklahoma severe weather event… except for when I stepped out onto my apartment balcony in the midst of the sirens, heavy rain, strong winds and booming thunder and lightning.  I think that I must have lived in Oklahoma long enough to have garnered the typical male response to an incoming TORNADO… thinking… Oh Gee…I gotta check this out!

But… I quickly got a reality-check when there was one of the loudest thunder claps that I’ve ever heard… immediately followed by the crack of a hot, super-bright, electrical discharge that flooded my senses with the strongest scent of ozone that I have ever experienced!  That kind of shook me and I quickly retreated back into the living room of my apartment.  I’m glad that I had enough sense to only take one step onto the balcony and not the full distance out to the railing!  I think that someone must have been watching over me!  What do you think?

In that moment of less-than stellar responsibility… I learned that there are certain situations where I should not have the ability to throw caution to the wind (literally in this case…) and think that I am safe in any environment!  But you know… as I was studying the Word… as a thunderstorm was moving into our area early this morning… the scriptures I’ve been studying for about a week now, brought to mind a very specific time of when the Lord had taught me about the need to control the environment surrounding my wife and I.

I’ve told of the experience before, so I won’t bore you with the whole story, but suffice to say, when Piper was first beginning to deal with the encroaching debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer’s, the Lord clearly spoke to my heart early one morning and in no uncertain terms, explained the importance of me controlling the atmosphere around her. 

It was already becoming very apparent to both of us, that not everybody around us… be it extended family, friends, the medical professionals or even strangers that we encountered on our walks or times at the store… were in faith for the journey we were forced into.  So along with everything else I was doing for my sweet wife’s physical care, the Lord also impressed upon me the need to keep an atmosphere of faith, joy, peace and encouragement in our home and as much as I could… outside of our house as well.

Sounds easy right?  WRONG!  And I learned real quick that in order to have any sense of success in this directive of the Lord… that I needed to keep myself in a consistent and ever-growing attitude of faith, joy, peace and encouragement.

Hummmm… and just how do I do that?  Well… The verses of scripture that brought me back to this memory this morning are found in I Thessalonians 5:16-19 where the Apostle Paul closes his first letter of encouragement to the church in Thessalonica (as well as to you and me today) saying,

1)   “Rejoice evermore. 

2) Pray without ceasing. 

3) In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 

4) Quench not the Spirit.” (KJV) 

I specifically numbered each verse as they seem to be set in a logical systematic order in which to follow… and as these steps worked for me in my situation back then, I believe it is also a current day directive of the Lord written to each of us for the varying situations we find ourselves facing each and every day.

First of all, Paul encourages us to “Rejoice evermore.”  The God’s Word© translation makes it a bit more up-to-date by saying “Always be joyful” while the Message Bible seems to be a little more accurate to the original Greek stating, “Be cheerful no matter what!”  Strong’s defines the familiar word “REJOICE” as “to be full of cheer, to be calmly happy” which to me says that our calm and cheerful demeanor is simply to be a well-practiced mindset that we operate in all the time... no matter where we are or what we are facing.  It is the steadying, basic and foundational asset that we have to control the atmosphere around us.

Next, we are told to “Pray without ceasing.”  Does that mean that we are to stay on our knees at the side of our bed in prayer all the time?  No, of course not… but I do believe it is talking about our need to stay in an attitude of prayer by keeping our spirits alert to the voice of the Lord throughout our busy days.

Smith Wigglesworth who was one of the great Apostles of Faith in the first half of the 20^th century was once asked how long he prayed everyday and he responded saying that “I don’t ever pray more than twenty minutes…” and then after a pause, continued by declaring “but I never go twenty minutes without praying!”  In other words… he stayed alert to the leadings of the Holy Spirit in his life and kept the lines of two-way communication between God and himself open all the time.

And once the first two directives of the Lord are up and running in our lives, it becomes increasingly easy and “normal”, as The Passion Translation says, to find ourselves “giving THANKS in the midst of everything.”  The Bible in Basic English tells us,

“In everything give PRAISE: for this is the purpose of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 

The actions of giving THANKS or PRAISE seem to be almost interchangeable when it comes to the worship of our God, but in reality, they each have a separate focus.  The Bible Hub* informs us that PRAISE focuses in on who God is, while THANKSGIVING emphasizes what God has done in our individual lives.  But in either regard and for the purpose of our verse in I Thessalonians 5:18, either action specifically takes our thoughts off of any difficulty in the situation that we are dealing with and focusses our attention on the love, truth, ability and over-coming power of the Lord and the truth of His Word for the need at hand.

And then… once the Lord has an open door to work in the midst of whatever it is we are facing… “Quench NOT the Spirit” as He begins to assist you.  Or as The Passion Translation puts it,

“Never restrain or put out the fire of the Holy Spirit.”

Once He starts working in the situation, stay in faith and sensitive to whatever it is that He is doing… AND… to what He may have for you to do in the situation as well!

And so… As I stayed sensitive to… what I like to call the “HINTS” that the Lord was regularly giving me… back when I was caring for my wife, it became increasingly easier to be aware of what other’s around me were doing and thereby for me to say and do the right things at the right times… and change and/or keep the atmosphere around my wife and I in a more positive, joyful and faith-charged atmosphere… just like the way that bolt of lightning changed and charged the atmosphere around my balcony during that TORNADO producing storm...

And… since we know that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”**

You and I can have the same results – TODAY - by following Paul’s directions and walk in such a way where our reactions of THANKSGIVING and PRAISE… in the midst of anything that happens in our lives… both good or bad… causes our faith to focus on the goodness of God and hereby allow Him to work His miracles in the daily situations of our lives… be it TORNADO SEASON or not!

 

* https://biblehub.com/topical/p/praise_and_thanksgiving.htm

**Hebrews 13:8