"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows." James 1:17
last week i got to experience something new. it was weird. especially since i hadn't paid attention to any weather forecasts. i was driving home and all of a sudden i could hear what sounded like rain hitting my windshield, but i couldn't see any rain. when i finally stopped at a stoplight and looked closely, i discovered that this was what my son now calls "jumping rain," otherwise known as freezing rain or sleet. so because it is frozen, when it hits the windshield it simply bounces off without making little drops like rain. no need for windshield wipers.
a week later i discovered the same is true for snow. depending on the temperature and wind and how fast you're driving, etc, snow most likely will bounce off your windshield without making it wet. and you can hear it, but you can't see it. especially if it's a real light snow.
my son and i were driving somewhere and like most Texans, i became excited when i realized it was snowing. i asked my son, "hey! do you see the snow?!?!" he became excited too but also frustrated because he couldn't see it. i could see it, because i have learned that you have to look against a darker background to see the dropping flakes. but he couldn't see it until we slowed down.
and i don't know about you but for someone who doesn't see snow much, to me it is a beautiful thing. especially lightly falling snow. it just gently and slowly makes its way to the ground. and its so quiet and non threatening. very peaceful. and calming. and pure.
and as we were driving it made me so sad when i realized my son could not see this beautiful sight, simply because we were going too fast. and then it hit me. maybe i am the same way sometimes. maybe God loves to bless me with good gifts, beautiful things, pure and peaceful gifts. and maybe i'm just cruising along in life too fast to see them. i'm so busy with my own agenda, my own kids and their activities, my own to-do list, my own routine. and there's only two ways I will be able to see the gentleness and purity of the Lord and his good gifts.
1) SLOW DOWN - sometimes out of conviction we can willfully pull back the reigns on our schedules, cut back on business, and get our lives to a more manageable pace. other times the Lord himself has to slow us down. he often will allow illness, losing a job, injury, a move, or simply a season of rest to help us regain perspective on his goodness.
2) contrasting light and dark. like I said, if I know it's snowing, i have figured out that you can see even the lightest snowfall if you will look at it against a darker background. i think its the same way with life as well. God sometimes allows bad things to happen in our lives so that we can see the good. bad things are not always of God, but they can be used by God to help us appreciate the good things.
and although God himself is eternal, many of his good gifts are not. and like snow in texas, soon they will be gone. and before we know it, it will be spring. of course then, it will be time to stop and smell the roses.
