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On August 2, 2006, a severe
storm warning was issued for many places in
Western New York. Across
Lake Ontario in Canada,
Environment Canada had reported severe storms with lighting, high winds,
hail and actual tornadoes. This huge system was on its way to us in WNY. I
looked out my kitchen window and saw brilliant lightening flashes and bolts
across our entire northern horizon, West to East! It would arrive about
10:00 or 11:00 p.m.
As a Christian, I trust in
God. I trust in Psalm 91! However, I was still very nervous and felt very
guilty about any lack of faith. No, I have never seen the terrible storms
out West or in “Tornado Alley”. My dad grew up in central Tennessee. My
granddad, the Rev. Levi Durham Agee was a Southern Baptist Preacher-farmer,
as was my great grandfather Agee. While growing up in
Buffalo,
NY, I would listen to my dad’s stories about tornadoes
and straws driven through trees. He would, of course, tell these whenever we
retreated to the first floor apartment of the house in which we rented the
second floor from my mother’s mom and dad. Yes, it always made the real
storm more “interesting”!
At this point, may I
digress briefly to my first storm story, “Kitchen Window”? One summer night,
about 2002, the prediction was for very high damaging winds, a storm
warning. I hurried outside and worked about two hours to secure everything.
Quite pleased with my efforts and worn out, I went inside and washed my
hands in the kitchen sink. Then I looked up and through my four kitchen
windows out onto the field across the road from my house. (We live in a
rural-suburban area.)
Now, I do not see visions
or hear voices, but in my mind I “heard”: “Satisfied?” Then the thought hit
me: “Why didn’t you just pray?”
I attempted a defense: “I
would have been the only person asking.” Answer: “Not necessarily, and even
if so, you alone could have prayed.”
At this point, I did pray
for protection from the storm and that it would be sent away. The reader may
already have surmised the result: NO storm. Just exercise.
2000 years ago, Jesus had
rebuked storms and winds. God is in charge of weather. We do not have many
things from Him because we simply do not ask! *
Several rebuked storms
since, for my last storm warning, I prayed at three different windows:
kitchen, door, and back.
No reprimands –
and no storms!
Now, it is 2006, and I am
“nervous”. I decided to leave a hanging plant on its post, as a sign to God
that I did trust His protection. I felt, however, that this alone was not
enough. At that point, I walked outside to the driveway in front of the
house and faced the distant lightening.
It was time.
I prayed aloud. In my
prayers, I asked God to rebuke the storms and to keep them from our area and
house. Then, in a sense, I spoke to the storms and to whomever was directing
them toward us. I rebuked them in the name of Elohim Adonai Yahweh, God of
the Universe, and in the Name of Jesus Christ, the Word, the King. Then I
returned inside.
The hanging plant remained
on its post.
About 10:00 p.m. the storms
arrived. To the North and to the South of us was tremendous lightening. The
huge flashes were incredible, greater and brighter than military scenes
shown on TV. There was, however, a unique factor in our storm. None of the
lightening was really near our house. (One common check is to count seconds
after a flash. Light is almost instant, but sound travels about 1100 fps.
Just multiply for distance from a strike.) In about an hour the worst of the
storm was gone. Once again, there was no damage, not even a broken tree
limb.
The hanging plant remained
on its post.
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Note bene:
*Most Christians with whom
I share my “sotrm stories” do NOT believe them.
Satan may be the Prince of
this World (Luther, “A Mighty Fortress”) and the Prince of the Power of the
Air, seeking always our destruction, as he sent winds against Job’s family,
and storms against Jesus on
Galilee and Paul’s ship on the way to
Rome. Jesus simply rebuked
the storm and later said that we would do greater things than He!
If we have the faith to ask
God, He will grant prayers of immense physical proportions! As the number of
times in which He has rebuked storms at my request of faith increases, I
submit that skeptics will need more to consider that God is, in fact,
granting prayer. A “scientific” study of the correlation between results of
storms and storms with prayer would be interesting, but I do not need it.
My physical proof is the
plant hanging on its post.
Amen. |
