(This is a revision of a previous post – actually one I’ve written twice – in 2013 and 2011 – every time you guys in the South get blasted by blizzards, I guess).
I have to admit that my flesh has risen up strongly as I’ve watched my southern brethren (and sistern) bemoan the terrible weather they are suffering across the south. Here in SUX (yes, that is actually the designation of our local airport in Sioux City – you can look it up!) we’ve had some bitterly cold temps (it was a balmy 8 below this morning) but we’ve not had too much snow this year.
And the fact is that six to eight inches of snow is an annoyance around here while it paralyzes southern climes. If we got a half a foot of snow today, school would likely start two hours late tomorrow morning. If it fell during the night, depending on what time it started, there would either be a late start or a snow day that cancelled stuff. Even Iowans are becoming wimpier about canceling school, church and activities in the snow, but the fact is that 12-18 hours after the snow came down life would be pretty much back to normal. You’d still be able to buy bread and milk at the grocery store!
Why is that? Are we just made of better stuff than the thin-blooded SEC-region wimps? Well, we’d like to think so, but that’s not really it. It’s a lot simpler than that. I live in a place where snow is a constant reality. It’s expected. A foot of snow is not an everyday occurrence, but it’s not unusual either. So…
- Sioux City has a fleet of snowplows at the ready when the first flake begins to fall. By the time that 8 inches of powder has fallen, my road has probably already been plowed twice.
- We have warehouses of salt and sand and trucks to spread it on the roads with the dual purpose of keeping the roads safe and rusting out our vehicles. By the time the snow starts falling, they’ve started preparing for it.
- If you live in SUX, you better have a pretty good snow-blower. I’m guessing most of you southern folks I’ve seen talking about snow probably don’t own one of those miracle machines. You might not even own a decent snow shovel. I talked to someone in Nashville who dug out with a garden shovel!
- If you live here, you’d better have at least one vehicle with 4WD, preferably all of them. Owning a rear wheel drive truck is fun but foolish in the snow. It’s great for an adventure, but not for transportation.
- We learn how to drive in snow. A couple of weeks ago, I was going 70 mph on the interstate sideways. I didn’t plan on it, but it happened. I don’t discount the gracious hand of God but I also know if this had happened 25 years ago when I first moved here I’d have likely exacerbated things with my own stupidity and probably ended up in the ditch. All those years of doing donuts in the church parking lot served a purpose beyond just aggravating the properties team!
- We almost never lose power here. Most of our power cables are buried underground so they don’t get torn down by the weight of ice and snow.
- We buy warm coats and other clothes to survive the cold.
- Our homes are insulated, then insulated again, then insulated some more. Then, we insulate!
Here’s my point:
In Iowa, and other northern climates, heavy snow and cold weather is a normal part of life, so we prepare for it. It is the life we expect so it is the life we plan for and prepare for.
Why do you think many Christians are so unprepared for suffering and hardship when it comes? We’ve bought into this idea that God’s will is that we not suffer, that if we serve God, everything will work out and nothing will go wrong. We anathematize the prosperity cult, but we subtly adopt its ideas.
When suffering comes, when a loved one dies, when our business goes under, when opposition comes – we are shocked, surprised, saddened. God let me down. Where are you God? This isn’t supposed to happen to me. Our expectations of a life of ease, comfort and contentment, guaranteed by our service to God, have been shattered!
In the days of the early church, no such expectations existed. These people knew that suffering with Christ was a normal, natural part of their life. Their perfect savior had suffered at the hands of evil men and empty religion. They were beaten, imprisoned and martyred for their faith. Suffering for Christ was just a part of their lives.
American Christianity is soft and our expectations of suffering are low. So, when it comes it seems like snow in Nashville – an unnatural imposition on life. But “all who live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.” “It has been granted to us on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his name.” “If they hated me, they will hate you.”
We need to re-calibrate our expectations according to biblical standards.
You live in SUX! Get ready for the snow, my friend.
When we see cold weather coming to Nashville,….we “get ready” to go to Krogers! Then we take the kids to the park to play since the schools are closed for a week. 🙂
The thing is we are more prepared for it today than in yesterday years here is Southwest Arkansas. In yesterday years it stayed on until it melted. Now within the last few years when ice or snow comes the highway department gets out sands all of the ice spots on hills and overpasses. And if a snow comes the road graders goes out and gets it off the highways rather quickly. They will also use the road grader to scrape the ice off the highways. They even have blades for their dump trucks and will use them. The thing is now if you don’t have a 4 wheel drive your will not get out of your driveway if you live on a state or US highway, because the road grader will leave a big pile across your driveway when cleaning it off, 2 to maybe 4 & 1/2 foot tall, and about that wide.
Since about 1999 or 2000 when we had a big ice storm and we were without electricity for about 2 weeks they put up larger and stronger conductors and light poles through this area. And they’re very good at keeping the high lines cleaned up so no large trees or tree limbs will fall on the lines.
This ice spell we just had a 64 year old wife got killed about 1/2 miles west of me. She was actually not even suppose to be driving because of her health. We have to many that thinks their cars, trucks, and especially 4 wheel drives, will handle on ice and snow just as they do no dry paved highways. Lack of experience, I got plenty of it back when I drove an 18 wheeler cross country but in my older age I don’t get on it unless its a have to.
OR…move from Iowa to Texas… 😉
Why would any sane person do that?
Who said I’m sane?!?!
move TO Texas? Move to Texas!
No, no it just doesn’t sound right.
and DC shuts down
I won’t start a debate about who may be the toughest folk in our nation. I don’t like the cold, especially after deer season closes, so you B1G folks are tough for sure. We had six inches of snow fall Wed in MS and I am positive I saw death riding a pale horse in the midst of our chaos.
I will say that our brothers (a little pun from the previous post) from NOLA are insainly tough. The heat and humidity in NOLA are indescribable. I grew up an hour away in MS and our summers are mild to that place.
Compared to that place
I live at the tip top of NY State. It’s been a brutally cold winter here, although we’ve missed most of the major snowstorms. (we still have over a foot of snow in the ground). I don’t think we’ve had half a dozen days above freezing for a couple months. We’ve had a ton of below zero days and nights.
Can I point out again that the message if the post us that we live in the North where snow us expected and usual, therefore we prepare for it. It’s not about regional pride or superiority though watching southerners suffer does offer some level if fleshly entertainment.
The purpose here us to remind us that suffering is a normal part if our lives. It is not an oddity or rare occurrence but a regular part if Christian existence.
We ought not be caught off guard and surprised by suffering.
I have always considered you to be an honest man. Of course you wouldn’t write a post about northerners being better than southerners.
I might THINK it. I wouldn’t WRITE it.
That would be like writing a post saying air is good.
Back to the point of Dave’s article, Christians can have trouble come on them at any moment. Just this week two northerners moved into our town without any notice.
Dean,
I’m sorry to hear that.
Heel, thank you for your concern and sympathy.
We don’t believe in capital punishment, we just exile our criminals to the south.
Why do I even bother?
Southern heat must fry brains.
What do you call 200 Yankees buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand.
What do Northerners use for birth control? Their personalities.
Your trapped in a room with Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and a Yankee. You have a gun but only two bullets. What do you do? Shoot the yankee…. twice.
😉
Great jokes,Tarheel….absolutely awesome!
Paul was imprisoned, flogged, stoned, boiled, shipwrecked, robbed, hungry, thirsty, cold, naked … content.
boiled?
Whoops – sorry. Early Christian writers spoke of John, not Paul, as escaping death in boiling oil before he was exiled to Patmos.
I thought maybe you had Food Network on while you were typing.
Bill, as I typed those words describing Paul’s persecution, I was reminded of an elementary school exercise (60+ years ago). We students were presented with several groups of pictures. In each, there was one picture which did not belong with the others – we were asked to identify those (for example a fruit in amongst an assemblage of vegetables). In thinking of that exercise in relation to Paul’s sufferings, “content” didn’t fit with the other words … but, then again, it did – Paul had learned to be content in whatever state he found himself in. A lesson for all of us.
We ha perhaps a higher percentage of Northerners in my region end up in the ditch than locals. The reason is because our snow is usually deceptively slick. It’s like driving on black ice the first day. If it lasts a second day it might actually be black ice. You just have to go really slow, even you may not need to because the next turn of the road might yield a slick spot. So we get passed by angry Northerners who think they can drive on the roads down here the same way they can drive on snow up there. Then we end up stuck in traffic due the accident they have a short bit later. But there are some Southerners who do just the same thing.
The way we teach our kids to drive on the ice is to take them to the church parking lot when it ices and have them practice sliding on it. At least that’s what the people I know do. But as regarding suffering, in a way it’s something we can do to prepare. That is to say that it behooves us to get out of our self-centeredness and involve ourselves with others who are suffering. We do that in some small way when it comes time for prayer requests and we pray for Sue’s dad who is having a stent put in his heart because of a blockage, or Bob’s neighbor’s grandson who was born premature, or the Stevensons who just lost their mother to cancer. Then we go home, put on a lasagna for dinner and watch the latest episode of NCIS. There’s a disconnect there that leaves us with a lack of desperation.
Over the past decade we have watched our friends in Venezuela decline from being a relatively free country, albeit somewhat economically depressed, to lose some freedoms in favor of better economic circumstances, to falling into almost Cuban-like circumstances where fingerprints are required to purchase what few groceries can be found. We also have friends in the Middle East who are being killed who are also being used in a mighty way to disciple countless Muslim Background Believers who are turning to Christ because they no longer fear being Christian any more than being Muslim since they are liable to be killed either way. Better to turn to the truth with they still have the breath to profess it. That is so foreign to our concept of Christianity, but that’s the very understanding that we need.
Back to being wimpy in the snow and ice, I’m going to blame lawyers for it. If it wasn’t a legal liability I imagine we could keep school open on most snowy days. I remember going out to recess while it was snowing. The busses were fitted with chains and regularly conquered icy roads. Suffering in Christianity isn’t a liability. It’s a key element of the gospel.
The principle you mention here is often true here. It’s called hubris. I was driving (slowly ) on icy roads one time and I noticed that all the cars/trucks /SUVs in the ditch were all 4×4. They didn’t think they needed to slow down. It cost them a tow truck bill.
Speaking as a Northerner (technically, I was just south of the Mason-Dixon line, but West Virginia was a Union state (after using the fracas to split off of Virginia to become a separate state)) who moved to metro Atlanta, I think the reason that the ice seems slicker in the south is that when the temperature gets down to producing ice and snow in the south, it still tends to hang around freezing. That means it doesn’t take much for the top layer of ice to turn to water, making it that much slicker. Up north, the temps tend to fall into the lower 20’s or teens (or cooler). The frozen stuff tends to stay frozen (and the snow gets crunchy), so it’s not quite as slickery.
That said, I still get the giggles watching metro Atlanta come to a screeching halt (after the initial rush for milk and bread) over a quarter inch of snow.
Dave, I do believe the North Pole is melting. Proof of this is that all of the North Pole’s cold air is down here in the South. I had to go out the other night and chisel my dog loose from the fire hydrant.
We haven’t had church in two weeks because of the ice and cold. I’m thinking about spending my winters in Iowa.
Lifeway of the SBC will be having a 6 week study course coming out next Fall on the Blue and Black, White and Gold Dress Phenomenon.
NOOOOOOOooooo. My daughters spent over an hour yesterday talking about that.
P.S.: http://www.businessinsider.com/white-and-gold-black-and-blue-dress-2015-2
Reminds me of the theological debates Southern Baptists have. They see it like they see it and you ain’t going to change their mind. Is it gold & white or black & blue … only God knows.
Et tu SBCVoices, et tu.
I came here hoping to escape it, but alas…
I once had a Black and Tan Coon Hound who tackled a gold VW Beetle. He was black and blue for a month. Didn’t hurt the Beetle much.
CB,
After seeing your comment, here, Lifeway wants you to write the 6 week study!!
🙂
David
Now you know what happens to dogs when they finally catch the car they are chasing! Hmmm … perhaps there is some spiritual significance to that in regard to the things some Southern Baptists chase?
Oh, and one more thing, it is actually SNOWING, again, in my part of TN!!
Incredible.
David
What is the difference between a dead dog and a dead Northerner in the middle of the road? There are skid marks in front of the dog.
A yankee (Moves to Georgia) was shopping for a tombstone for himself and goes to a local stone cutter. I want my tombstone to say, “Here lies an honest man and a Northerner” says the yankee. To this the stone cutter replies, “Sir, it is against Georgia law to bury two men in the same grave.
Definition of Mixed Emotions – Watching a Yankee drive your new Porsche off a cliff.
Why are most Yankees democrats? Because they identify so well with the mascot.
Why did the Yankee cross the road? To cut in front of the chicken.
What do you call a kind, compassionate Yankee? An hallucination.
Happiness is a northbound yankee.
Wow, I totally agree with that!
Dear David: I don’t even own a snow shovel, and it would probably give me a heart attack to use one. However, North Carolina is getting to be upper Midwest (I did live in St. Louis and central Missouri for a number years) in its visitations of the white stuff. I keep telling my wife, I feel the Lord calling me to Jamaica, but she has turned me down for the first time in her life (I think it has to do with the fact that our son is our pastor and neither of us are in any shape to make the trip, being heart patients).
Anyway, I use to have a fellow that attended my church (third pastorate) who was from Iowa. Seems he was in the military and met a girl from NC, got married, and stayed. He said, except for visits, he was never going back, cause the idea of months on end of only seeing the tops of the electric poles sticking out of the snow was enough the get him down or something like that. By the way Billy Sunday was from Iowa. He won the mother of a friend of mine to Christ, and he also preached in the pulpit of another friend in NYC during the time of his greatest crusade (the New York Crusade in 1917). I think Billy set the record for running the bases, but I am not sure of the time now. God bless.
Dr. Willingham, I don’t recall learning before now that you are in North Carolina. I’m in Statesville. Are you nearby?
When I was on staff at a church in Florida, we flew in a small plane to Statesville, NC to tour a stained glass factory there. Our church was building a new building and we put four large glass panels in the back.
I flew up with two others, toured the factory, saw how they made the windows and reviewed their plans. It was a very fun day.
My only experience with Statesville, NC.
It was probably 1982 or 1983. I was young and dashing.
I was in high school then, so I was young. And plenty enough girls thought I was dashing in those days too.
I was barely out of diapers…
Stained glass, hot air balloons, and trying not to be Charlotte – Three weird things Statesville is known for.
Jim, I’ve had some pretty good NC barbecue in Statesville.
Tarheel, I’d say we have access to both East and West here. My boss is from Texas and he makes some mean mesquite brisket, so there’s three. The best can’t be found in a restaurant. There is a class of competitive cookers in the area that might do some catering. That’s where the best is found. Short of that, and still better than a restaurant, is in pockets of individuals. A sister church has an active Baptist men’s group that I’ve been to a couple of times. They have it in the shop of one of the members and he barbecues everything including turkey and venison. Combine that with the kind of devotion time these men have together and it’s hard to beat.