Author: Jarred Edgecombe

Daer PBC Family,

While on vacation last week, a terrible storm rolled through the place where we were staying and knocked the power out. Remember that the temperatures were in the upper 90’s. It was toasty – to say the least. The next evening the power came on at 6 and the air conditioners ran for 30 minutes, then another storm rolled through and knocked the power out again. This one was accompanied by hail, and it seemed to me that there may have been a tornado because the wind changed directions. The next morning a manager told me that it looked as if a small tornado had come through.

I started thinking about how much damage can be done by the weather in just a couple minutes or even seconds. Storms and tornados (whirlwinds in the Bible) are a window into the power of God, and also into the judgment of God. The whirlwind is often used to describe the majesty of God:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…

Job 38:1

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power… His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nah. 1:3 

God’s judgment is also likened to a whirlwind:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Is. 66:15

Behold, he comes up like clouds; his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles…

Jer. 4:13

But for the children of the Lord, he is our protection from his judgment. Jesus shows his power over nature to protect his own in the Gospels. For example, in Matthew 8, while in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the Bible says, “he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” (Matt. 8:26) 

We never need to fear storms, whether they are natural storms or the storms of God’s judgment. He is greater than any storm that we will face.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

If you had your choice, would you prefer to drink fresh cold spring water or lukewarm water that has been sitting in a cistern for a while? Easy question, right?

When he was taking a break from a hot and dusty trip, Jesus told the woman-at-the-well, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14). In the next verse he told her, “The water that I will give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Every human is created with a spiritual thirst. The thirst is not condemned by the Lord, but people’s methods for satiating this thirst are often found to be wanting. Thus, Jeremiah speaks of Israel’s rejecting the best water available, a fresh water spring (the Lord), in favor of the low-quality water of a broken cistern (idols): “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

Not only do people go after things that are less satisfying (money, career, fame, prestige), but when they are accumulated, they run out. That is because cisterns always run out, but a spring never runs out of water. So anything that we pursue to quench our soul-thirst, other than the Lord, quickly becomes stagnant.

The only pursuit that truly satisfies is Jesus Christ, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money… Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1–3)

Blessings,

Jarred