Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: December 5th

In five years in Upstate New York (Cortland to be exact) I cannot remember more than a couple of times that school was ever called off for snow. Cortland lies on the southern edge of the New York "snow belt" and usually averages somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and twenty inches of the white stuff a year. Our first year there snow covered our balcony continually from November 8 through Easter. Now I live in the Blue Grass where even the mention of a pending snow can cause cancellations.

Weekend before last we had snow and ice and, as a result, a number of churches in our area cancelled their morning services. We at Minorsville decided that we would cancel just the Sunday School hour and go ahead and meet for worship at the normal time. The snow actually lingered for a couple of days and then was gone. This past weekend it snowed once again. I remember waking up Saturday morning and seeing about two inches covering the ground. By evening we had pretty much nothing left.

That's snow in the Blue Grass. It's a visitor who pops in from time to time, causes cancellations, then leaves just as quickly. On our street, I am one of the few people who actually still shovels the stuff. That comes from my upbringing in Central Ohio where the snow had to be shoveled or it would cause problems. Here, it is usually gone by the evening so why worry? I guess I just like to see a clean driveway and sidewalks. It did raise my wife's curiosity when we first moved to Kentucky. "Are we the only ones that care about the snow?" she asked one winter.

It certainly seemed that way. It seemed like we were the only ones who were concerned about ice forming underneath the snow if we drove on it without cleaning it from our driveway. It seemed like we were the only ones who didn't want our neighbors to have to walk through it on the sidewalk. In its insignificance it has become ignored by the bulk of the population. There's just not enough of it to make it a bother, and it is usually gone after a day or so. Then why are so many hurt by car accidents and falls when it hits? That's still an insignificant number.

Snow is a lot like sin. It comes up on you gradually in a way that doesn't really offend you. Then, there it is and it kind of looks pretty so you don't worry about it. But people get hurt, change their normally productive lives for a day or two and then it's gone; and forgotten. But its effects linger. The lost days of school, the ice melt that was bought just in case, that bruise that you got when you fell; it exacts a toll. Sin, like snow, always has an eventual bottom line. However, unlike snow, sin can be avoided. It is our choice. "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily traps us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher or our faith." Hebrews 12:1, 2