weather

Parting of the Red Sea…

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I’m sure you know the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea on dry ground. Yes, God parted the sea to allow the people of God to cross, and as you know, allowed the sea to cover and drown the pursuing Pharoah and his chariots.

There are folks who try to explain away the miracle of God on some meteorological phenomenon, wind, or tidal anomaly. Personally, I don’t buy it. That’s not what the Bible says, nor does it account for the drowning of all the Egyptians… but I digress, and that’s a topic for another day.

Today, on our motorcycle trip, I saw God part the seas, in a manner of speaking.

imageWe rode from Valentine, Nebraska to Des Moines, Iowa, a distance of 424 miles. We ate lunch in Decatur, NE, which was just over half way. We saw, by looking at the weather radar, that a wide band of heavy rain was just northeast of Omaha, and we were going to have to go through it. It was inevitable… we were going to get wet again. We had spent two days nearly a week ago in Yellowstone National Park in nothing but rain. So, we put all of our raingear on and readied ourselves for the weather.

imageAs we traveled down I-29 South, I watched on my iPhone (mounted in a waterproof box on my handlebar) weather radar as the line of storms started to move ahead of us to the east.

By the time we headed east on I-80, the band of storms had weakened and somehow (ha!) changed direction and moved to the
south of I-80. We encountered 10 minutes of light rain and then, as we sat in 5 mph construction traffic, the rain stopped altogether.

For us, this was God parting the Red Sea and we crossed on dry ground.

 

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How did Moses respond? In song.

“The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
(Exodus 15:2 NIV)

Sounds good to me… I’m singing too.

The best laid plans…

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As you may have read, I’m on a motorcycle trip. I’ve been planning this trip for some time. This kind of trip takes planning, in my opinion. It’s over 5300 miles in 18 days, including five national parks and 13 states. You have to plan what you pack and how you pack. If you want to stay within the national parks, in our case, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Grand Teton, you must make reservations well in advance. It takes planning.

I did research, I looked at seemingly endless resources about things to see and the most scenic roads to travel by motorcycle. I had to plan how many miles to travel each day, taking into account the sights we wanted to see. It takes a lot of planning.

My buddy Paul and I even planned to spread the Gospel as best we could along the way, either by the way we treated those we met, helping the hurting we encountered, or just by directly sharing God’s Word with those whose hearts we sensed need to hear it.

I think we’ve done well thus far. Tomorrow will be Day 11 of our 18-day trip and Paul has nearly exhausted his supply of Gideon New Testaments and I’ve shared encouragement with over 50 people in one form or another.

What I didn’t plan on is the weather. Yes, I brought proper raingear and warm clothes. But with all the planning, I didn’t plan on the rain which has been virtually non-stop throughout our visit to Yellowstone National Park, obviously one of our prized main stops.

There are mountains in Yellowstone… I think. We never saw them. The low cloud cover hid them. There were so scenic places we would’ve loved to stop and just watch for wildlife, but the steady rain made it impractical and frustrating.

But as I sit hear on the porch of the Signal Mountain Inn in Grand Teton National Park, I am nevertheless grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to see this wonderful country and see sights that most will never see. I’m grateful for the safety God has provided throughout the trip, including protection from bison crossing the road directly in from of us. They inched closer and closer to me and having no escape, I was forced to sit motionless until they were 10 ft from me on my motorcycle.image

God has provided safety and favor… favor in holding off the rain while we waited 50 minutes for Old Faithful to erupt and favor in allowing the clouds to part so we could enjoy the astounding beauty of the Tetons.

Truly God has been the One who has been faithful… and I know I can plan on that.

James 4:13-14 NIV says:
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.