For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.
St. Paul to Timothy
Through God, we find power. The power to love. And the power of self-control. God showed us this power through His Son.
My, how much these words ring true today. We need His power to love and control ourselves today, even more. I am quite speechless, as far as current events that have happened in this country this past week.
I work for an agriculture company, and I was at our facility the other day and I had a meeting in an office in one of the back warehouses. We got a tour of our large “cob” building. You see, after the corn is harvested from the field in the fall, the ears of corn are brought in and dried, and then shelled. Shelling is when the corn kernals, the seed, is shelled from the cob.
Now at my company, we don’t waste anything. And so, these cobs, after being shelled, are then ground up to form animal bedding that we bag and then turn around and sell as a side product. But before it is bagged, the ground up cobs are stored in the cob building, in towering piles. This isn’t the only cob building we have. We have a smaller one, that is not in operation.
Last fall, I was driving to work, and saw smoke billowing in the distance. As I arrived closer, the cloud got bigger and bigger and I knew that it was something at my company that was on fire. As I arrived and talked with other employees, we heard it was the smaller cob building.
We were in the thick of harvest season. The weather had been warm and dry, and these ears of corn are run through a larger dryer where they are heated up and dried out even more before shelling, and then they get thrown into a very dry, enclosed space. The machinery in this smaller cob building was older.
Something sparked. And everything, immediately, when up in flames. The building essentially blew up, farming equipment that was nearby were charred in minutes.
It was a perfect storm. All that was needed was a spark.
Not unlike our situation today.
Years of oppression. And now months of lockdown and fear. A dismal economy. All that was needed was a spark.
And we got it.
And so here we are. We see the smoke billowing in the distance, but yet, it’s really not in the distance. Its where we live and work and play. It is in our backyards now. We are not immune to the flames. We are not sheltered. We may be sheltering in place, but that does not protect us from the problems, the evils in life.
Day after day, protests. And night after night, these have turned violent. And I see why this is happening. As a white male, I don’t understand. I can’t understand. I can’t understand the level of anger and fear and anxiety, and sheer turmoil that black people go through in this world and especially, in this country.
Years upon years, Decades upon decades. Generation upon generation. Century upon century.
All we needed was the perfect environment – and a spark.
But is this such a bad thing?
Yes, there is violence. There are people dying, lives, and businesses being destroyed, not only through the riots but also through this pandemic. But such things have to happen to foster change.
Just as in my company with the fire – we learn, we fix, and we better prepare.
Can we not do that here?
2020 has turned out to be a year like no other that I have experienced.
I have never witnessed nor been affected by a health crisis and pandemic such as this. I have never experienced racial tensions such as this, nor seen riots so close to home as what I have seen in recent days. And I’m sure most of you can say the same.
But it’s almost like there is Greater Purpose behind all this. I believe, and I often write about, how God’s plan is perfect; His design is perfect. And Paul writes of this today, how everything is “according to his own design.”
And so, we can look at the events of this year, and lament and complain. Or, we can look at this time as a time of change, a time of growth, and a time of purification.
We can look at this time as a time to recognize God’s power, to turn back to Him, to ask Him to give us the power of love and self-control. Because we all need it. We need it now, more than ever.
The environment was perfect. The air was warm and dry. The perfect storm. and then the spark.
It’s the spark though – the spark that lights the fire, that purifies us, that changes us. And through it all, is Jesus. He doesn’t want to see us in pain, but He bring good from our pain. And sometimes it takes pain and suffering to change us, and help us to see Him.
And it is this spark, this purification, the Power of God that will see us through this to help us have self-control, to help us love one another – not only this year, but in the years to come, and into eternity.
