The depths congealed

Wrote this the day after Hurricane Sandy inundated the East Coast of America.

The rain is hard.  So hard, the window looks covered in a sky-grey oil slick.
There's probably a river flowing through the basement.  I hope it doesn't stop.  As long as the water keeps flowing through and the drain stays unclogged, all his tools, all the baby scrapbooks, all the Christmas boxes stacked on pallets won't be destroyed.
Two children are napping, oblivious to the thunder shaking the sky and the lightning splitting it.  Safe.  Warm.  Imperviously hugging a stuffed cookie monster.  The other two are at grandma's, probably schlepping tools for Grampy in the garage or building precarious block towers on the living room rug in front of the wood stove.
But I know nearly 8 million people lost power last night.  Many were neither safe nor warm.  They were scared and helpless compared to that 900 mile superstorm.  The anxiety grew as the water rose; they know it will cost them far more than some new Christmas decorations this winter.
It was an inconvenience to some.  It was deadly destruction to others.  It renewed an impetus for us to pray for many whom we know were impacted.
But why would God send this storm?  How could he?

He could, because He is in absolute control of every little molecule in time and space.
He can stick His finger into a cloud and swirl it the way a three year old can make eddies in a mud puddle.
With a breath, He can direct the wind along the exact swath of land it was intended.
He sets the time of the tide and the heave of each wave to the exact millisecond.
He made the rules of science, and chemistry and meteorology and astrophysics, and can, in complete knowledge of how they function, write the equation that sets each atom spinning and each hydrogen bond forming.  He forgets no detail.  No atom left behind.

For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens,
To establish a weight for the wind, and apportion the waters by measure.
When he made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt.
Job 28:24-26

I personally don't know the science.  (That's just one reason why I write a blog rather than work a job as a rocket scientist.)  It is fascinating, but beyond me.  So I won't try to explain it beyond that.

But still, why the storm?

I can not explain love.  Or migration.  Or why only some babies sleep through the night.
I do not know why.
But I wonder...

I was reading Exodus this week.  The Israelites were at the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army closing in behind them.  You know the story.  God parted the waters.  They walked through on dry land.  The soldiers behind them were crushed and drowned when the water closed back up.
Again, I haven't studied the science.  I'm not sure how the wind God sent made the water pile up, or how He dried the muddy sea floor.  That was some wind.  In the song of Moses in Exodus chapter 15, he says "the depths congealed."  I imagine Red Sea jello.
What were the fish thinking at that moment?
In this story, it tells us why this happened.

Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.
Exodus 14:18

In that moment when the jello turned back into deadly liquid, those Egyptian soldiers knew the Lord in His terrible power.  When the army didn't return from their conquest, the mothers and wives - who had already lost at least their oldest sons, all their winter grain, the animal food supply, their wealth - knew the Lord had made them widows and childless mothers.  They wept, and they knew.  Pharaoh, finally, knew the Lord was truly and completely in control.  He'd been raised to believe that he, as ruler of the great nation of Egypt, was a god.  Humbled, he knew.

I hope it doesn't take such lengths for us to know.  As a nation, we have enjoyed the Lord's mercy and blessing.  Four hundred years prior to the Red Sea crossing, God had blessed Egypt when Joseph taught the young pharaoh that God could and would provide.  But the morals of the nation had degraded until they allowed the murder of babies and warped justice so that men who did not work ate well while those who worked the hardest provided for them.  They forgot God.

From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, and cold from the scattering winds of the north...
With moisture He saturates the thick clouds;  He scatters His bright clouds.
And they swirl about, being turned by His guidance,
that they may do whatever He commands them
on the face of the whole earth.
He causes it to come,
whether for correction,
or for His land,
or for mercy.
Job 37:9,11-13

I have known God in His mercy this time.  Perhaps you have known Him in a different capacity.
He will go to great lengths to get your attention.
He knows you.
He wants you to know Him.
No atom is out of His hand.  No speck of matter will move unless He commands it.  No person, created  for the very purpose of knowing God, will He ever forget or ignore.
He who moves mountains, who makes the Red Sea into jello, who sent His beloved Son from heaven to earth to die a horrific death, He would send a 900 mile hurricane just to reach your heart.
I hope you know Him.
Because He'll do it again.
He loves you too much to leave you alone.
Ever.