9.20.2015

I'm not the scientific type.  I don't particularly care how things work.  I defer most serious science questions, lobbed at me by curious children, to Nick.  He almost always can explain any phenomena to the satisfaction of the kids.  Not me!  "Why do the leaves turn colors in the autumn?"  I flip through the small mental rolodex of "things I remember from 6th grade earth science" and come up empty.  "Uh, well, I guess because the color scheme of fall is yellow, orange, and red, and all those bright green leaves seemed clashy."  Four kids rolls their eyes.  Nixon is impressed!  Nick whips out words like "clorophyll" and "glucose" and I proceed to zone out, ensuring that I will still not know the answer the next time I am asked.  But now and then I observe something that interests me, which probably has a simple scientific explanation, for completely unscientific reasons.

Example:

We are just entering our third autumn in Japan.  Through much of the spring, and almost all of the summer, Mt. Fuji isn't visible to us from our house.  Then, sometime in the fall, it will start appearing.  We will be driving down the road and, lo and behold! Mt. Fuji will be there!  It's not a hard-and-fast rule.  Every now and then we catch a glimpse of Fuji in summer and once and a while it is hidden in the winter, but not generally speaking.

I am not very fond of winter.  I don't particularly like the cold and the whipping wind.  Things seem desolate and lonely.  We have to brace ourselves to face the elements.  We walk through snow and slush and we slip on hidden patches of ice.  It's rough!  And there, in the midst of all the things that I would rather not deal with, Fuji shows up, looking majestic and steady.

In my 30 years, God has often worked that way, too.  When things are easy, steady, and balmy, I don't see Him every day.  I set cruise control and don't worry about the fact that He isn't showing up.  But once winter hits, when I am trapped in a snowstorm, bam! I find Him.  In the middle of my chaos, He looms, unchanged and unchanging, right where He has always been, whether I looked for Him or not.  Whether I could see Him or not.

How do you train yourself to remain diligent and mindful in the summer?  Habit, I suppose.  A greater dedication than I am prone to have!  This winter Fuji will be the string around my finger.  When I am encountered with that mountain, multiple times a day, I want to take a moment to seek out God.  Just for a minute.  To tell Him that I wish to seek Him and to see Him even in this "summer" of life.  It is one of the easiest fallacies to believe: that I need Him less when life is simple.
Lord, I need You, oh I need You.
Every hour I need You.
My one defense.
My righteousness.
Oh, God, how I need You.