I’ve a massive tornado story under my belt as of Tuesday night. The kids and I had roadtripped out to Missouri for a quick, spur-of-the-moment visit and were on our way back when I headed straight into the storm. To be fair, I didn’t have a clue it was coming. I was just following the sometimes-faithful old Siri on a new route to I-70.
We had stopped for a quick park meetup with my dear friend Megan south of Kansas City. After a quick romp thru the sprayground we set off again. In between the fight over a Pokemon book and a five year old’s complaints of a stomachache, I realized the sky was getting rapidly darker. It occured to me I ought to think about the weather. Cars on the highway were slowing down, their drivers’ jaws dropped wide. Several cars were perched on the overpass, headlights pointed west. That seems like a dumb thing to do if a storm is blowing in, I thought. This was immediately followed by a lightbulb moment: people do really dumb things, I bet it’s a tornado.
I shushed the kids and flipped on the radio. The first words I heard were an automated, “If you are in Douglas county, take shelter immediately.” I wondered if I was in Douglas county, but only for a hot second. It didn’t look like a tornado beyond my windshield; it looked like a wall of doom. I sped up to pass the slowing cars. Fortunately there was an exit, and I took it. We bolted into a Holiday Inn Express. The staff was ushering people into a ground level bathroom. Without shame I took a seat on the toilet. Then I asked a lady squished next to me, “Um, I just got off the highway. Where exactly am I?” She patted my knee. “You’re in Lawrence, Kansas, hon. And you did the right thing getting off the road.”
There were at least twenty people in the room. We prayed for safety, for the tornado to miss us. The moment we said ‘amen’ a guy looking at his phone said, “Huh! It’s moving away from us! It’s missing us by a quarter mile!”
We held on in the bathroom for a bit longer to be safe.
An hour and a half later we deemed it safe to get back on the highway. Immediately we passed a car nose-down in a pond, its windows down and airbags deployed.
This has been my closest obvious encounter with certain disaster. Heaven only knows how many other times I’ve escaped only by the skin on my teeth. I was a bit jittery and snappy with the kids the rest of the drive home, especially when they whined about only having granola bars and crackers for supper that night.
I wanted to shake them, “Don’t you realize how lucky we are to be eating granola bars right now?!” God let a tornado rip across Kansas but He let it miss us by a stone’s throw.
Think of your worst natural disaster nightmare and consider this: God can choose to spare or take a life, and we will have nothing to say about it, only gratitude for the next breath.
I have friends who have told me that religion is for people who are afraid. People who want to control other people by fearmongering. I will tell you this: nothing puts the fear of God in you like a radio PSA to find a hole in the ground quick before a vortex destroys you. You are not in control.
The confused soul today maintains that there is more valor in questioning than in submission. This is interesting, considering how little control we have over our own lives. We are tiny beings who watch the radar so we know when to run and hide from the weather. This is an obvious metaphor for our current cultural climate, and yet we refuse to cry out to the only One who can save us from destruction.
This reminds me of a man named Jacob.
If you know anything about the story of Jacob in the Old Testament, you’ll remember he was a mama’s boy brown-noser. He pulled off one of the biggest hoaxes in Bible history by donning goat skins and tricking his blind old man into giving him his brother’s birthright.
After running away from home (scared that his big brother will beat the snot out of him), he starts down a path of setbacks, one after the other. But he grows up. Hard work and a sneaky father-in-law (arguably more deceptive than even Jacob) are the catalyst for sincere maturation in his life. He develops discernment. He learns how to set boundaries. He learns how to ranch and take care of his children.
There comes a point in the story when Jacob is moving his family to a new land. He first lets his family cross the river, and then he is alone for the night. Genesis 32 says a man came and wrestled with him until daybreak.
They wrestled all night, the two of them. Finally, as dawn was breaking, the stranger said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Gen.32:26)
The man asked him his name. “Jacob,” he panted. Jacob, which means he grasps the heel–an idiom for he deceives.
“Your name will no longer be He Deceives,” the man declared. “From now on you will be Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Then Jacob realized he had been wrestling not with any man, but God himself. He had lassoed a tornado and was holding on for dear life.
You see, God wants us to wrestle with him when we are good and ready! Not for us to stand in the ring as a victor, our arm raised in the air by some referee, no. He intends for us to be changed by Him. He wants our full-on, all-night, intimate, cradle-pinning effort. He’s looking for the indomitable spirit of the seeker: I’m ready, God. I’m no deceiver. Change me, change my name. Call me something different.
Proverbs 2:3-5 says
If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
The story of Jacob wrestling God isn’t a picture of a man throwing shade on the Maker of the universe. No. He knew he had no chance at strong-arming is Creator, nor was this his intention. He knew, ultimately, that God would have His way. “I’m not letting go of You, no matter what,” he thought, and blessing came through his tenacity to cling. The verse says God touched Jacob’s hip socket to wrench it. Jacob was left a limping man for the rest of his life. For years, when people saw Jacob coming, they had a visual of his story, his wrestle with God.
I want that confidence and I want an awesome story like that.
He sought, he stayed.
He submitted.
He met a storm; he took shelter.
May we wrestle wisely (and always watch the weather).
