Every Fifteen Minutes

“I

f you don’t like the weather in Texas, just wait fifteen minutes.”  Thus the saying goes by those who come from these parts and call them home.  When I first arrived in Texas, I thought this saying was a slice of Texas humor used to make those of us not from these parts feel more relaxed and jovial about our new home.  It didn’t take me long, however, to discover that this was not a propaganda ploy.  This was the honest truth, not in the least stretched or twisted out of proportion.

In the past nineteen years, I have witnessed almost every type of weather scenario imaginable.  I have experienced thunderstorms, flash flooding, wind gusts, tornado watches and warnings, hail storms, and have seen hurricanes strike our southern coast. A few years ago on a particular summer afternoon, the weatherman had predicted heavy thunderstorms during late afternoon hours.  Right on time, just like clockwork, they showed up.  The wind blew, the sky darkened, the thunder pealed, and the lightening flashed.  Everything was going just as predicted.

That’s when the unexpected happened just about fifteen minutes into the storm.  I was sitting on my couch when I heard hard knocks against the large windows in the office.  After a few seconds, the knocks grew steadily louder and one glance out the window let me know there was more to this storm than just wind and rain.  Out on the lawn, hail stones the size of marbles were accumulating.  As far as the eye could see, these stones were raining down, smacking against windows, bouncing off cars, smashing into the sidewalk and bouncing off the roofs of neighboring houses.  The sound was deafening as the hail continued to fall.

Right on schedule, after fifteen minutes, the hail stopped, the rain slowed to a drizzle, and the wind grew calm.  It was as if nothing had happened and had it not been for the hailstones littering the front lawn, no one would have ever believed frozen precipitation had fallen from the sky. 

Life sometimes resembles the weather patterns in Texas.  Every fifteen minutes it seems something new crosses our path.  These changes often come in the form of unexpected situations, difficult challenges, and down right inconveniences.  The car breaks down, we get sick, there is a death in our family, money gets tight, and myriad of other things find their way into our lives.  It seems that life throws us one curveball after another and that every fifteen minutes, the conditions of our life change. 

At times like this we often found ourselves discouraged, frustrated, dejected, and ready to throw in the towel and give up.  We feel there is no stability; nothing to hold to, our family, our friends, and any form of security seems to be all but lost.  Sometimes we feel that even God has forgotten us and has somehow found something else to do rather than pat attention to our situations.

If this sounds familiar to you or if life is tossing you one curve after another, I would like to share a word of encouragement from the book of James.  In James 1:17 we read, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 

At first glance, you may think I have misread this passage.  You may be hard-pressed to find anything good about your situation, let alone consider it a perfect gift.  Nothing about heartache, financial difficulty, relationship problems, or a host of other challenges seem to be good or encouraging.  But read on to the end of the passage and you will see the wonderful hope in this verse.  At the end of this passage James reveals such a wonderful kernel of truth: God does not change!  That’s right!  God does not change.  Unlike sand which shifts and is blown by the wind, God stands firm and protects us in all life’s trials.  He never leaves us and will not allow us to be tempted beyond that which we can stand.  No matter what we are facing, the same God who spoke everything into existence, the same God who parted the Red Sea, the same God who appeared in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, this same God is with you in every situation of your life—good or bad!  He has promised to use every situation in your life to bring about good and that is exactly what He is doing even when it doesn’t feel like it. 

God is always at work molding His children into the image of Christ.  Situations in life may change every fifteen minutes but our God is the same hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year, from now throughout all eternity.  Do you have fifteen minutes to spend with Him today?  Find out what a change this can bring about in your life.  The clock starts now!