Winter is here again. It’s the season with the cold temperatures and cutting frigid wind. To most (if not all) it is quite discomforting. To some it is even frustrating. Just why then, did God make earth with such a cold season?! Is it not true that He loves man? Wasn’t He smart enough and powerful enough to make a dwelling place without the cold? Then why the cold?
Actually, as we recall, God did not create the earth with a cold season. In the beginning, God created for man a very beautiful dwelling place (Gen. 1 & 2). This paradise also had a water canopy (Gen. 1:6-8) which would have provided a global “greenhouse” allowing for very comfortable temperatures and a tropical climate world-wide! This is what God created for man, and this is what God wanted for man. It is crucial for men living today to realize this. Thus, it is true that God loves us, and it is true that He was smart enough and powerful enough to make a dwelling place without the cold. Then, why the cold?
This water canopy continued its marvelous effects for several centuries. However, there came the time when mankind became so corrupt with sin that God used the water canopy as one of the means to destroy sinful man with a flood (Gen. 6-8). With the water canopy gone, the greenhouse climate was lost, and seasons now had extremes of hot and cold–all because of what man did!
The next time you are discomforted by the cold, do not question nor criticize God. Rather, blame man. The next time you despair the heat, the illnesses, the dangerous animals and natural calamities (most of which, if not all, are a result of a changed world due to the flood) don’t blame God, blame man.
Also, the next time you suffer from these difficulties, if you remember they are a result of sin, it may help you to realize how horrible and serious sin is to God, and how certain and dreadful the consequences are to you.
Today, these difficulties are used as a means to test our hearts. Just as the difficulties encountered by the Hebrews during their forty years of travel tested them to see whether or not they would keep His commandments (Deut. 8:1-6), so do they today. May we not fail the test.
Gary Henson