The Whirlwind

I don’t usually do much reading of the Minor Prophets, but the morning on which I discovered my car had been stolen, I happened to flip the pages of my Bible back to Nahum, taking a break from my habitual reading of the gospels. The first chapter of Nahum talks about how angry God is with the city of Nineveh because they had hurt his people, his children whom he loves more than anything. This is the same city of people that provoked Jonah to jump out of a boat in the middle of a raging storm, and consequently be swallowed up by a giant fish all because he did not want to go and help the people in Nineveh; he knew they didn’t deserve help. God knew this too but he’s kind of a rock star in that he gives us second chances even though we don’t deserve them. Nineveh had had it’s second chance, and then they went right back to brutal acts of death and destruction. Nahum, whose name means comfort or consolation, was writing to encourage Nineveh’s victims that God would bring about justice and punish Nineveh for their wickedness. While reading this chapter, there was one verse that stuck out to me. Verse 3 which says, “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.” When I first read this, I underlined it because I liked the imagery of God in the midst of a storm. There’s a line in Job which I really love where after Job has been moaning about his misery, and he truly was miserable, God finally shows up and tells him what’s what, it says, “Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm…” (Job 38:1). The idea that even in the midst of the storms we experience in this oh so not perfect world, God still speaks to us totally melts me. After realizing my car had been stolen, I was kind of freaked out. Remembering the verse that I had read that morning, I was able to find comfort in knowing that God is still taking care of me. He will provide justice, and even more than that, he is in this whirlwind of a storm. Just knowing that I’m not alone in this is all I need to keep going. I don’t understand why this bad stuff happens, but I know that God is still there for me. With his peace in my heart, I am able to continue through the inevitable storms of this life.