Tornados and Clouds

I drew a small cloud in the sky on a page of his coloring book, and then I asked him to color the cloud. He picked up a brown crayon and put it to the paper, and I almost corrected him before I laughed to myself and thought, he's actually right! 

For a child in Burkina Faso during the dry, hot, dusty season that we are in right now, the sky and the clouds are indeed quite brown. 

My mom frequently compares the weather in our hometown to the weather in Burkina. She has them side by side on weather.com and often teases me with it. "It's 72 and sunny in Little Rock, and it says 102 dust in Ouagadougou!" I like how "dust" is an actual weather condition. You have sunny. You have cloudy. You have rainy. And you have dust. If you don't know what that means, come to Burkina. 

Because the ground has been deprived of a good rain since last October, the dust picks up quick. The other day, we saw a gigantic dust tornado swirling around the neighborhood. We even stopped the car to watch it. It climbed higher and higher and lifted trash and black plastic sacks 100 feet into the air. Unlike other small dust tornados that die out quickly, this one just kept getting bigger and bigger until I thought we were going to get swept right up out of Kansas. 

My mind goes like that sometimes. My thoughts whirl around in my head like dust particles in a tornado - so many thoughts just swirling around and around, picking up more and more junk as I go, getting bigger and bigger until out of control. Some are good and thankful thoughts, some are doubts and fears and questions, but they are all mixed up together and whipping around in my mind. I'm thinking about how good God has been to me, yet I'm also thinking about the suffering I see around me all the time. I'm wondering, Am I really making a difference here or am I just trying to survive? Am I being a change agent or just going with the flow? Trust me, just surviving and going with the flow is accomplishment enough, but I want to speak better and build relationships better and do ministry better. How? I have so many ministry ideas dancing around in my head, too, but how do I make it happen in a culturally sensitive and loving way? 

I couldn't sleep. I had so many thoughts in my head that I couldn't even figure out what was really bothering me and preventing me from resting. I just kept turning it all over in my head, around and around like a dust tornado. 

That's when I opened my Bible to Job 38. For 37 previous chapters, Job and his friends had been asking questions about suffering and justice and righteousness and turning these things over and over and over in their heads...God finally responds and speaks into the dust tornado they had made. 

And it's funny how he doesn't answer their questions. He doesn't explain himself. He just recounts the wonder of who he is and what he has created. Maybe that's the answer to all our questions after all. 

As I read the words of God Almighty, I began to feel the same way that I imagine Job and his friends felt long ago. I didn't need to figure everything out - my purpose, how to accomplish my ideas, how to bear fruit in ministry, how to make a difference, how to please God or serve his people. All that faded as I realized I only have one need. 

The need to worship.

It was like the harsh, hot desert wind died down and the dust tornado fell back to the ground where it came from. 

Then another small wind picked up, but this was different. It was more like the gentle breeze in which Elijah heard the voice of God in 1 Kings 19. It was like the wind described in John 3, the wind of the Holy Spirit, which you never know where it comes from or to where it is going. 

And I was like a little cloud. 

"God loads the thick cloud with moisture, the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world." (Job 37:11-12) 

I don't want to be a tornado; I want to be a cloud. I want to be gently blown by the Spirit, and I want to turn around and around by his guidance. 

Clouds don't worry about pleasing God. He is already pleased with how he made them. They don't worry about obedience because they can't help but obey. They don't fret about whether they are making a difference or not. I don't know why I have this struggle over and over again, but I do. I just want to please him and obey him and he speaks to me through the words of Chris Tomlin in his song "Good Good Father"...

"You tell me that you're pleased and that I'm never alone." 

God's wind is already blowing, meaning that he is already at work. Are we caught up in the dust tornados of our reckless thoughts and worries, or are we being gently blown by the wind of God's Spirit like a cloud?