I live in Scotland. I was born here.
Something in the water means that as a nation we talk about the weather a lot. And given the ridiculous amount of rain we've had in 2012, there's more water.Let's clear something up: I'm not a meteorologist.
I suspect most of you aren't either. In fact, there's only 25,000* professional meteorologists on the planet. That's 0.000004% of the people alive right now. Give or take.
I can't talk about the ups and downs of isobars or the movement of fronts. But I think that despite all that we are aware of weather more than we realise. More than simply talking/moaning/pontificating about it; weather impacts us. The atmosphere we live in changes our breathing. Our body changes based on the atmosphere it's alive in.
The other morning, the atmosphere was heavy. And the temptation is to get wrapped up in that. To focus on that. To make the atmosphere the thing that matters.
(*made up statistic based on there being 9,400 in the US in 2009)
For whatever reason.
Actually, it's mainly for one reason. To keep our eyes on ourself. On what we are feeling. On how we think it's all going to end. But that's the problem. Billy Connoly once said:
"My old fishing pal Jimmy Kemp said there is no such thing as bad weather, it's only the wrong clothes." (from here)
And isn't there truth to that? That we can think we're the centre of it all. And to the weather/atmosphere/job/audience/relationship should be what we want it to be.
Yet for the follower of Jesus, I believe we have the opportunity to more than survive the atmosphere. Not only is God in the high pressure and the low pressure. He is also bigger than it.
"He is here. In the valley low. He's here. I feel Him in my soul. Our God. Here and now."
And how do we get the atmosphere to break? We can try and push through, do it on our own ("I can do it all by myself", as the weeWeir would have me believe). We might not use that language as more mature humans. but the same spirit still rises up in us. At least it does in me.
We need one who calms storms and makes planets outside and inside the atmosphere. And he is the One who knew us before we were born. As a few friends and I have been challenged by recently, we need to become less self-dependant and more God-dependant.
