Job 38.22-23 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?”
What kind of mind is it that dreams up a wet whiteness that falls to the ground and decorates it with a fluffliness that changes everything? I try to engage the creative side of my brain throughout the day, but what kind of creative genius not only dreams up snow, but also the conditions necessary for snow to exist? Before the world was even created, God had determined what “snow” would be. Today, the earth becomes God’s snow globe when He but simply says to the storehouses laiden with snow, ”Fall” and it falls. According to The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
“Imagery describes Yahweh having storehouses of rain, hail and snow, which are set in motion by the wind, presumably instigated by his breath. The word “storehouses” can be used to refer to treasuries that would store precious objects, as well as royal weapons. Hail, snow, wind, thunder and lightning are often seen as the weapons that God uses to defeat his enemies. Likewise storehouses could serve for the storage of raw materials such as barley, dates, grain or tithes in general. In the same way God rations out the products from his storehouses as necessary. Cosmic storehouses are not common imagery in the ancient Near East.[1]
As I shoveled snow this morning, I was reminded that like all things, this too had been sent from God. His heavenly chest was open and the ground was transformed. Granted, on any given day, the snow could have become a bane for me – a hastle to deal with. This morning though, the Lord gave me eyes to see its beauty. Not only could I see it but I touched it and I tasted it and I heard it.
In a sermon on Psalm 19, John Piper talks about how the Psalmist was captivated by the creation of God. “The psalmist saw the sun rising and something happened inside of him. A joy had to get out into words for others to enjoy, but “O, wow, look at the sun” would not do. Instead he finds an analogy…. Verses 5 and 6 come as close as anything in Scripture to what Wordsworth called the “powerful overflow of spontaneous feeling recollected in tranquillity.” They are simply a poetic expression of the joy that comes from beholding God’s creation. They are not teaching; they are exulting. They don’t so much inform as they delight…”
He goes on to say, “And the best thing to do with such poetry is to enjoy it and copy as well as our weak powers will allow us. Perhaps the best thing I can do to honor the intention of Psalm 19.5 and 6 is to show that I have tried, too, to find words for some of the joys I’ve had in God’s creation. Maybe you’ll get the bug. A joy unexpressed is probably only half as great.”
THE GIFT OF SNOW
I tried to follow the advice
I gave my wife:
“Don’t put your full weight down”;
But, for my life,
I couldn’t stay atop the snow.
Every fourth or fifth step
The fickle layer of ice would crunch, and in I’d go
Half way to the ground
In three feet of snow —
Like when you climb a stair
And inadvertently add a step in the air.
But there’s a mystery in such stumbling
If a heart is given to mystery
More than to grumbling.
How odd that, with every jolt,
My head should be thrown back
To see the sky.
The fickle snow by giving way
Would have me face the heavens;
I wonder why.
At the time I thought it strange
My fall did not pert me to itself;
Now, my mind is turned to guesses:
Could it be—
Is there a possibility
The snow, knowing the heavens
From which it came,
And being gently laid to the earth
For a short and silent life,
Desires to point me to its early home
Where once it knew a hurling freedom
That I have never known?
Could it have known some good
That it would share with me;
That in its death beneath my feet
Would still pulge
As if it loved me more than life?
Is it more wise than I
To know that falling is an utter death
Unless one turns again
To that from which it fell?—
And more kind
That it should teach me, as I kill,
The lesson it must die to learn?
I have misnamed it, fickle snow:
Should I expect the words of the dying
So easily to flow, as of the living?
Its random crunch is not mere giving way,
It is a way of giving.”
Rejoicing over the sovereignty of God and snow.
[1]Matthews, V. H., Chavalas, M. W., & Walton, J. H. (2000). The IVP Bible background commentary : Old Testament (electronic ed.) (Job 37:9). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
