Flash Flood Safety

Great Basin National Park, located in north-eastern Nevada, is not one of the better known of our 63 national parks. We visited it this summer on the way between Los Angeles and Boise, ID (not a direct route, by the way). The route to the park from L.A. took us through the eastern part of Nevada, which, if you’ve not been there, is pretty sparse.

Along the drive both Joanie and I got alerts on our phone. It was a flash flood warning, which was a little disturbing to me. But worse yet was the admonition to stay off the road! I’m from Washington. We have floods. But…they are rivers overflowing their banks and the like, not flash floods. We were not precisely anxious, but a little concerned about the situation, so we decided to find some locals in the next town (wherever that was!) and see what they might tell us or advise. We reached the town of Caliente and opted to skip the gas station (who knows how old the attendant might be) and stop at the TrueValue Hardware we saw – Lincoln TrueValue – hoping that some older, wiser folks were around. By the way, if you ever happen to be in Caliente Nevada, stop in and see them – they were most excellent.

The folks at the store – I assume the owners – laughed a little, but not in a condescending way. They showed us how much mud had been deposited on the sidewalk and parking lot in the prior day’s flash flood – which wasn’t the most encouraging thing to see. But then they said, “You will be alright if you just stay up on the road.” In the possibility that the rain came down so hard we had no visibility, we pull over to the side somewhat and wait it out, but whatever the circumstance “stay up on the road.” They were very kind and reassuring as we still had 2 ½ hours to drive to get to our accommodations.

Well, we did drive through some heavy rain, but not enough to have us pull over, and…we did not get swept away in a flash flood. Thankfully!

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think, even as the store owner gave us his counsel, “This will preach.” God has given us a road to travel on. Jesus calls it the “narrow road” (Matthew 7:14). It is the path marked out for us by God’s Word and we get ourselves in trouble when we step off this road, whether it’s to explore a rabbit trail, or to sightsee, or because we think we know a short cut. So let me share a piece of wisdom from a Nevada shop owner that it easy to remember, but exactly right for our spiritual journey: Stay up on the road!

Pursue Christ – He is enough,

            Pastor Jeff

Truth and the Purring of a Cat

Truth and the Purring of a Cat – 1/12/2022

We have a cat; her name is Joy, and it turns out that she is aptly named. She purrs…a lot. We’ve taken to calling her our therapy cat and her communication pattern as “purr therapy.” Just the other day, my wife commented that maybe we should see Joy as an example of our walk with God. I was really interested in her comment because I had been reflecting on exactly the same thing for a few weeks actually. 

Let me explain, Joy has a pattern every morning and evening. While I am still under the covers but starting to stir (or as soon as I get under the covers at night), she starts to “talk,” climbs up on my chest, lays down and begins to purr. I don’t have to do anything but lay there and she just purrs and purrs. It sounds like an outboard engine on a small boat.

What causes her the happiness? I don’t know, but she seems to take delight in simply being close. After she warms up her tummy (usually about five minutes) she shifts to the base of the bed, by my feet and just keeps purring. What prompted Joanie’s comments and my reflections is just that, shouldn’t we just want to be close to our Father, and shouldn’t that be enough to produce joy in us?

I wonder if much of the struggle we face in our Christian journey is simple idolatry. We look for our happiness to come from positive circumstances, from personal successes, from achieving particular objectives, from retreating to distractions. You get the idea and can probably fill in some very specific examples from your own experience. We may express our need for God, our belief in God, our dependence on God, even our submission to God, but we don’t really delight in God. I think its time to recover “delight” as a fundamental Christian attitude, and “beauty” as an essential Christian principle. C.S. Lewis said it better than I:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. C.S. Lewis, The Eternal Weight of Glory

And…while we say our dear Joy is beautiful, but not smart (at least not as cats go), it turns out she may have more wisdom about life that we give her credit for. Now, if you’ll excuse, I am going to enjoy a moment of purr therapy.

Pursue Christ – He is enough,

            Pastor Jeff