SNOW Storm

During the big 2014 snow storm in the southeast I found it fascinating how the news began debating. The snow paralyzed Atlanta. People were abandoning their cars. Thousands of kids were stranded in their schools and had to spend the night. Many adults and children were still not able to get home and we are going to start a debate. Was it the meteorologists’ fault? Had they misinformed us? Or was it the fault of the government officials? Should they have made sure the roads were salted and the teams were ready to respond to the inclement weather?

They were each pointing their fingers at each other unwilling to take responsibility. Back and forth they went while there was still a mess. People were still in crisis, people were still left to be rescued and brought home and they wanted to spend time and energy debating and focusing on stuff that doesn't matter. I mean, does it matter whose fault it is? Does it matter who should have to clean it up? Or who should have done a better job? Or do the people matter? Is it more important to be right or to respond?

I love how God can use the most mundane things like the weather to speak to my heart and help me to see how I waste energy just like this. How many times have I wasted time debating? Trying to be right, outwardly or inwardly? Directly or indirectly? How many times have I missed an opportunity to respond in love towards someone because I was focused on things that don’t matter? While there is a mess going on in someone’s life I am still debating yesterday. While there are people in need I want to justify why I made the decisions I did to prove that I was right. That it wasn't my fault. All the while people are stranded and struggling. People are dying. People are in need of rescue.

I want to be right and they just want a response. They want to know someone cares. That they are loved and that they are not alone. They may need to be carried out because the wounds are so deep and the brokenness is debilitating. The very thought of keeping their eyes open is too much effort because they are suffocating under ten feet of snow from the avalanche that this life has become for them.

I want to be done with the desperate need to be right so that I can be free to respond. To go to the sick, the dying, the outcasts, the messed up, the hungry, the broken and the proud and lead them to rescue. Lead them to life. Lead them to a loving God who is always right but won't stop to debate fault. Won't stop to consider who should have to clean it up. He just opens the eyes of the blind and rescues all who are stranded and struggling by responding to His people because we matter.