It was hot and it was only six in the morning. I stared toward the rising sun, now a half orb glowing orange and angry. The sky above was cloudless and pink with the promise of another scourging day. I sadly chuckled to myself, ‘just another day in paradise’. That is if you considered the badland desert of Zion National Park paradise. At the moment it felt more like hell to me!
My partner and I had taken on the reconstruction of six crumbling overpasses on a road built by CCC crews during the Great Depression. We were now working on number 3 the longest of all and we would be here until mid-August. Just the thought of August in the desert made me tired.
Now, do not get me wrong, I love hot weather and there is nowhere more beautiful to me then the stark, red-rock towers and mesas of this very place. But there is a real difference between touring its wonders and working day in and day out manhandling piles of scourging hot rebar under the pressure of a schedule that meant working in temperatures of near 100 degrees. Yes, we normally started our day around three A.M. and that saved us from having to survive the unsurvivable heat of desert afternoons, but the hours just ahead could certainly try a man’s body and soul. Still there was work to be done.
Around eight we were finishing up some of the under work that connected the bridge to its center column, when we first felt signs of it. The wind had picked up and it was coming out of the west. In the distance I could see dust devils making their way across the desert floor. Could there be a storm brewing? But I shook it off, most desert storms happen in the heat of the afternoon, back to work.
Rain in the desert is a scary thing. We were now working over the top of a dry bed but in a flash flood it would become a raging torrent, no one seemed to expect that to happen this morning. In fact, the crane that was moving our rebar into place was positioned in the center of the dry ditch. He would move to higher ground in about an hour but for now work needed to get done. We were all wrong.
Fifteen minutes after the first west winds began to blow clouds gathered in the distance and moved at us with alarming speed. My partner yelled down to the crane operator below us, “Jimmy, I think we need to get this last load unhooked and you need to get to higher ground.” Even as he spoke the first drops of rain began to fall and the dry bed began to trickle with rainwater coming from the west. Within minutes the trickle became a stream and the drops became a downpour. As the cooling rain poured down on us, we had no choice but to head for the protection of our truck. Looking down as we ran, I could see the stream was now a torrent and its water was above the large tires on the crane and Jimmy was trapped by the storm.
Have you ever been washed away in a torrent of problems and worries that sweep into your life like a flash flood? I know I have more often than I would like to admit. For many years, these storms were of my own creation, lost in addiction and self-absorption, I would make decisions or even worse not make decisions that would affect those around me with devastating results. In coming to believe that I have a Savior in Jesus Christ I have strived to seek to make reparations and ask forgiveness for those times. And I am blessed that I have experienced grace and love that has allowed me to move forward and know HIS forgiveness is real. But has this ended the storms of living in a world full of sin? I am sure any of you reading this can answer this for yourselves. The truth is we live in the midst of storms everyday and it is only how we weather them that will determine if we survive and thrive or drown below the flood.
There is a story in the synoptic gospels about a storm on the sea of Galilee. I am sure most of you have heard or read it. Jesus directs his disciples to pilot their fishing boat across the sea to the other side. During the voyage, the weary Savior falls asleep in the stern of the boat. But as he sleeps a mighty storm arises. A storm so great that it even scares the harden fishermen who knew what a tempest the Galilee could be. Terror of the storm has driven all of them to distraction. But one of them, I like to always think it was the tax collector Matthew, sees the sleeping Jesus and runs to him yelling into the gale, “Master, do you not care we are all perishing!” It is the next picture of Jesus I try to keep in my mind when storms blow through my life today. Here is how Mark relates it, “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4: 39-41)
I have imagined this scene often, terrified disciples who like me did not yet recognize who was in that boat with them. Yet, there stands the serene Jesus calmly stating in the face of the storm, “Peace, be still.” And then turning to them and today to me and saying, “Why are you so afraid? Where is your faith?” And normally I can only pray I do not say, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him.” But instead say with the prophet Isaiah, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2) It is only with this kind of faith that I and you can face the storms and flash floods of life no matter what direction they come from.
I will never forget the terror I felt that day the rain fell in sheets and the entire desert turned into a sea. Jimmy hung on for his very life, the torrent actually moved the crane until it was wedged against the center column and it was only that structure that kept it and him from being washed away. I pray today that you and I can feel safe in the flood or in the sunshine. That we do not look at the storm but at the one who can calm it with a word. He says, “Peace, be still!”
Blessings
John
5/4/20
