For the Washington, DC area, the national weather service is advising us to be prepared for a major snow storm this Saturday. About two feet of snow is what they’re predicting. That’s pretty significant. And as I was reading the scriptures today, it reminded me of the Noah and flood.

Only a few verses before the story of Noah and the Ark in Genesis 6, God is noting that the people are multiplying and becoming progressively more and more wicked. Then, he declares that the number of man’s years will be 120.

After reading it through several times, doing some word-research on my own and then hearing from the puritans (John Calvin, in particular), I feel pretty confident in saying that God was giving humanity 120 years before wiping almost everyone out with the flood. If that is a reasonable interpretation of the text, then that’s pretty amazing.

Though things were in sad shape and getting worse, God left them with over a century to turn. Of course, they didn’t, and that sucks. But, God’s grace and mercy in that are beautiful.

It keeps us in the tension between eagerly waiting and praying for Christ’s return, yet at the same time praying that God would have patience and mercy and bring in many, many more who don’t yet believe. And that’s just where we are. Waiting for the ‘flood’, knowing it will come, yet hoping that God will wait and more will be saved.

That’s pretty cool, I think.

I’m finally home now after a brief stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was a short stay. Only actually about one whole day there.

After driving around for hours the first and second night, I finally found a clear overlook of the Gatlinburg main strip; the image to the left is pretty much the whole deal. Exciting right?

I don’t make it down to the South very often—or anywhere else, really. So when I do make it out of my back yard into other parts of the country, I always find myself observing the culture and comparing it to what I experience on a day to day basis. I am especially hyper-sensitive things in the Christian realm.

One thing that I observed down in the Tennessee area was what appeared to be a strange kind of devotion to Jesus (well, strange to me anyways).

Up north, people will regularly put the little Jesus fish on their car, or slap the Christian bumper sticker on. But people also tend to hold their spirituality with a kind of reverence; like, they see it as the “holy” part of their life. Of course, few live with much concern for the Lord beyond that reverence.

But down in Tennessee, and presumably most other parts of the south-east, that kind of public fare devotion comes across different. It looked more (to me) the way people might be devoted to a beloved football team. A vehement supporter and enthusiast. Wearing all the apparel, slapping the stickers on everything, whooping and hollering at a good play—but ultimately, allowing it to have little real influence in their day-to-day lives and decision making.

I don’t mean this to sound judgmental. I’m not claiming the feigned devotion up north is somehow better than the feigned devotion down south. And, I’m sure that some of what I saw was genuine. It’s just an observation.

On the way home, we listened to the first eleven chapters from the book of Romans. Romans 2:28-29:

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

This verse reminded me of what I’d observed and reminded me that “believers” are not believers when they are so merely outwardly. But we are believers when we are truly transformed inside.

We all must to look to Jesus to ease our guilt and calm our conscience. No matter how reverent or boisterous we may be in our faith, it is Jesus who saves, by grace through faith.