Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

This past week-end, a lot of people (including my three children) woke up disappointed around our area. Seems that big ‘ol wintry mix of a storm that was supposed to come our way didn’t, and instead we got to see images of surrounding areas with anywhere from 6 inches to almost 2 feet worth of newly-fallen goodness. We should be used to this by now, because this is typical for where we live. It seems every year there is a major snowfall and it misses us by the smallest of distances, but this disappointment was made more severe by the build up on the news throughout the days before, and that’s where the crux of this Evotion comes from.

The weather guessers on our local stations use winter weather as a tool. They shoot short 30-second teasers about possible winter weather in the area and lead off the newscast with some zinger about how “it looks like there could be some white stuff headed our way, but we’ll get you the detailed 5-day forecast in 10 minutes.” They milk this stuff for all it’s worth, and then, when they unveil the 5-day forecast, they’ll show a map that projects snowfall in the mountains of North Carolina, which are 2-3 hours away from us. It always makes me wonder if the people living in the mountains watch the Charlotte channels. I would guess they’ve got there own weather guessers, right?

Sorry, I’m bitter. More to the point of the verse above, though, is the fact that weather guessers seem to have a disease that we’d better not catch in the church. They OVER-PROMISE AND UNDER-DELIVER. They’ll use the hope that we all have of a white Christmas against us, and so they’ll promise the possibility of one even if the likelihood of it is less than a snowball’s chance in, well, somewhere really, really, hot. As a result, people tend to not believe what they hear the weather guessers say. I’m one of them, and so when they tease me with the possibility of the “Storm of ’09” next week-end, I’m more likely not going to rush to the store for bread and water because it’s the same old song and dance. Over-promising and under-delivering makes the heart sick, and at some point, people take their hearts and go somewhere else.

Apparently, if you look at church attendance data, people are doing just that. Having heard the faith preached like a weather guesser vying for a rating’s increase, they’ve determined that the church just can’t (and never has) deliver the goods. Tired of being disappointed again and again, they’ve chosen to stay away. That’s the natural progression when people take us at our word that the next sermon series will be “the best ever” and they come to find it not even as good as the previous average one.

It’s time to start OVER-DELIVERING, and when we simply give them the truth and grace of God without all the hype of a rabid weather guesser, we will.

Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…”

Like most people who live in the South, I dream of white Christmases. Of course, I’d settle for cold ones because I can count on no fingers the number of actual snowy holidays I’ve experienced during my lifetime. Maybe if I lived in a colder part of the country and actually had them each year I wouldn’t dream about them. But I don’t, and so I do. You understand.

I don’t know what power the white stuff has over me, but there is nothing as magical as looking out in the evening and seeing it falling without making a sound. There’s something very fresh and new and clean about snow, at least until the kids get in it, and then it’s more of a muddy mess. But the point here is that each one of us, regardless of the climate in which we live, has the promise of a white Christmas. The promise that God wants to sit down and have a chat with us about what an awful mess we’ve made of things and yet about what an awesome gift He has for us. He created snow and I have to believe that He designed it to be peaceful, clean, and fresh so that it would remind us of how He sees us when we have accepted the sacrifice of His Son.

Christmas is when He came. In a sense, it was the first real snowfall because it brought to that manger the sacrifice that would eventually cover the mess that we had made, and for all who call on His name, this Christmas will be a white one. Pure, fresh, clean.

And who knows that we won’t wake up to the beautiful sound of silent snowflakes falling? We’ll look out the window, sip our coffee, and remember the Son who made it snow in our souls.

Hot or cold, I’m having a white Christmas this year. How about you?

So, who knows how many hours of quality television programming will be interrupted today as the weathergeeks track “Winter Blast 08?” Time will tell how wrong they are…

Stay tuned.

**update: after all the warnings and “can’t miss” snow predictions, we got a dusting. Go figure.