2019 Lenten Devotional 5

For this Lenten devotional, I am going to do something different. The packet of devotionals that I picked up at my church (Vineyard) the Sunday before Ash Wednesday included about ten different devotional options. One of them is about nature, and seeing God in nature. Today's post will kinda-sorta do that. It's a bit complicated to explain at the moment why I included the "kinda-sorta" modifier, but I hope that that will sort itself out as you keep reading.

About 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan lies a sleepy town called Dobbs Ferry. It sits right on the Hudson River, surrounded by many suburbs in what is considered a wealthy corner of suburban New York City. Dobbs Ferry itself is not necessarily rich, but it is a rather charming town nonetheless.

Here are a couple photos from the riverfront park my girlfriend and I walked to one afternoon:

On the surface, the river appears peaceful. And, it very well may have been at the time that I snapped these photos. But I am told that this region regularly experiences howling wind, year-round. It is also said that there are demonic forces behind it. I've gotten to hear it for myself, and it almost sounds like someone is yelling, once it gets up to speed. I've even heard the windows rattling at my girlfriend's home while on Skype with her. So I believe it is possible.

On this day, however, it was mostly peaceful, save for about 10 minutes right around the time I had gone out on a pier to snap a picture of the New Tappan Zee Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge (see photo #3) when I saw the waves on the river pick up. It wasn't a whole lot of wind, but the waves, at one moment completely peaceful, suddenly became agitated, as if some horrendous alien sea monster had awakened from its deep-sea hideaway and was making fast for the surface. It was enough for me to see how this wind could strike at any time; all of a sudden, from a dead stop, this wind could pick up and howl at a high wind speed, as if truly possessed.

While in the park, however, my girlfriend and I came across a placard, situated along the waterfront. It explained how the Hudson River, in this area, takes its time to flow into the ocean, situated at the south end of New York City, with Brooklyn on one side and Staten Island on the other. What that means is sometimes the water flows towards the ocean, and sometimes the water flows backward. Something about the mixture of the soil beneath the river, the currents, the depth, the soil around the river, and so on, that leads it to not just simply flow on straight down toward the ocean. I don't know if this is a common thing with rivers, like in flatter areas when they have their deltas, where the water just kinda hangs around, flowing whichever way. It just occurred to me: there is something to be said for freshwater hitting saltwater. Rivers are freshwater. Oceans are saltwater. Maybe that's it.

I did also notice that right in this area, and really all the way down, both sides of the Hudson River have high-elevation landmasses, relative to the river. Across the way from Dobbs Ferry, on the west side of the river, is a downright cliff. And even on the east side, the town slopes down quite a bit in the last half-mile to a mile before the river. I do know that oftentimes having a large river in a canyon that is also anticipating the impending conflict of freshwater meeting saltwater, it will take what begins as a small wind and turn it into a monster.

So, the question: where is God exactly in this picture? I don't know. Sometimes it's better for me to leave you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions. I will say I believe that God is not in the wind. The Bible does refer to God as, among other things, the God of peace. [Romans 15:13 (NKJV) Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit; Romans 16:20 (NKJV) And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.] Therefore, I believe that even if He isn't necessarily in this particular stillness at this particular moment, He does give us peace and rest when we choose to stay close to Him.

We do, however, have an enemy, one who hates God and everything He stands for. (You might have picked up on it in the second Biblical verse I shared last paragraph.) If I could say one thing about that, it would be this: Satan is not on your side. He is sure as heck not on mine. I believe that anything that is verifiably demonic means that he is ultimately behind it. Every evil that has ever happened in human history, large or small, no matter the human or spiritual conduit, ultimately traces back to him. The wind that howls in Dobbs Ferry sometimes will get to scary levels, howling loudly and causing windows to vibrate. While there does seem to be a scientific explanation for what happens, it doesn't necessarily explain away the demonic aspect of it. Like I say, the devil is not on our side, and if he wants to use science to deceive people and trick them into thinking that God isn't real, then he will. I will say though that science doesn't preclude us from seeing and knowing and experiencing God and His mercy and truth.

I'll leave you with that. In the midst of the stillness and the calamity, on rivers and hillsides and parks and beaches, in the midst of freshwater and saltwater, where do you see God, the living God of the Bible?