The Whirlwind 9-27-10

Recently, when a friend asked me how life was going, I told her I felt like I was in a whirlwind. Between school, kids, Spouse, church, and dental and chiropractic issues , I feel like the winds are just swirling around me. I feel like I am in the midst of chaos on a regular basis. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out where I'll be going to seminary, what program to follow there, whether or not I'll be doing a study abroad summer session, how to pay for it if I do, how to get ready for Old Farm Days where my daughter talked me into sharing a booth with her (after I gave up crafting), organizing my home, etc. etc. etc. The issues are numerous, and my energy level for dealing with all of this is waning.

The interesting thing about that is the day after I said that, God spoke to me in a way that made me take notice. One of the classes I'm taking is Religion and Film. We explore how religious culture is portrayed in movies. Last Wednesday we saw A Serious Man, a 2009 movie by Joel and Ethan Coen. One of the many things we were discussing was the Job parallels in the movie and what the movie's message was. We had read Job for class, and one thing just stuck out at me. In Job, God speaks out of the whirlwind.

Sometimes God speaks in a still small voice in other places in Scripture. Sometimes he speaks through dreams, through visions, through prophets and even once through a donkey. But here he speaks through the whirlwind. So here I am in the midst of my own little whirlwind of busyness and stress and -yeah, I'll admit it-- crankiness, and God reminds me to listen despite all of it. As Christians, we aren't promised a calm, easy-to-handle existence. We aren't promised that everything will go our way or that hard decisions will be easy to make. We aren't told that everything will be easy peasy lemon sqeezy. It's just not that simple. BUT if we are willing to stop and listen, sometimes God will speak to us in the midst of all the chaos in our lives. He wants us to know that He's there, and even when we feel like we are the ones who have to keep all the plates spinning, He's right in the midst of all of it too. And the words He most often speaks are "Be still, and know that I am God." I can be calm, even in the midst of all this, knowing that God is God and I am not. I can do my best with what God has given me, but in the end, I just can't control everything. And that's oddly comforting, even in the midst of a tornado.