Heat Wave or Just Summer

With no rain in sight.

Although we missed most of the really bad weather, the tornadoes, flooding, etc., we did get enough rain to keep the ground too wet to work right up to or past the middle of May. Then we got a couple of showers which did little more than wet the top of the ground. Now, after more than two week without any rain and the temperature hovering over the mid and upper nineties, we are getting dusty dry here on the hill. We have been watering the cucumbers and squash for several days but even that doesn't do much good with the sun being so hot. The tomatoes and peppers are faring a little better but not growing as they should. Even the grass and weeds are not as healthy as usual. We haven't started yet but it looks as though we will need to start sprinkling our front lawn, not to make it grow but to keep it alive.

To refresh my memory and to put everything into perspective I re-read the Book of Jonah. I'm sure most people remember what God told Jonah in Chapter 1, verses 1 - 4; "Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken."

Jonah apparently thought that he could hide from the Lord but it didn't work out that way. What happened? Chapter 1, verse 15 & 17; "So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Then Chapter 2, verse 10; "And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."

Chapter 3, verse 1-5; "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go into Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." Apparently that was just what Jonah didn't want to happen. Nineveh was the enemy so why should he be sent to preach repentance to them?

Chapter 3, verse 10; And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not." Chapter 4, verses 1-2; "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." Jonah said; I knew that was what would happen, that's why I didn't want to go.

Chapter 4, verses 5-11; "So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head , to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did rise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle."

Moral of the story; Jonah apparently cared more about the gourd, which he neither planted nor tended, than he did about other human beings and expected God to be the same way even though God made both. Isn't that the way most of us are? We sometimes care more about something we have planted in the ground than we do for our neighbors down the road. Like Jonah, many times we get our priorities bent out of shape and, again like Jonah, complain about things which we have nothing to do with. At least, that is the way it is here on the hill.

Meanwhile, here on the hill, it is still hot and dry but life goes on as usual. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned. - William