Storms are rolling through our area today. They are quite severe in some places. Looking out my window now, there is just a gentle rain and an occasional burst of distant thunder. The weather radar tells a different story and I am surprised that our little town’s weather siren has not already begun to blast.

As the pace of the storm picks up, there is now rolling in the sounds of closer thunder, the kind that you not only hear, but are able to feel when it rumbles. The rain becomes steadier as the winds pick up their pace through the swaying trees. They sway back and forth like a crowd dancing to the beat of the storm.

This is the part of the storm where household pets begin to show anxiety and “storm-o-phobes” begin to frantically gather belongings and run to their bunkers. For me, it begins an awesome display of majesty. I do not expect to visibly see Him, but Scripture says, “There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty.” ( Deuteronomy 33:26 ) and “He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind;” (Psalm 104:3).

The Word teaches us that storms are God’s revelation of HImself to us teaching us that He is greater and superior to the false idols of Pagan worship.

The picture of God riding on the clouds and across the heavens was directed against Baal, Canaan’s storm god, who was said to mount up to the heavens. But it is the Lord who rides victoriously through the heavens (104:3). That Elijah, the great opponent of the worship of the false Baals, was taken up in a whirlwind accompanied by chariots of fire (2 Kg 2:11) would also undermine such pagan beliefs.

(Ted Cabal, Chad Owen Brand, E. Ray Clendenen et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 846.)

John Calvin commented on the Psalm,

What is meant by his walking upon the wings of the wind, is rendered more obvious from the following verse, where it is said, that the winds are his messengers. God rides on the clouds, and is carried upon the wings of the wind, inasmuch as he drives about the winds and clouds at his pleasure, and by sending them hither and thither as swiftly as he pleases, shows thereby the signs of his presence. By these words we are taught that the winds do not blow by chance, nor the lightnings flash by a fortuitous impulse, but that God, in the exercise of his sovereign power, rules and controls all the agitations and disturbances of the atmosphere. From this doctrine a twofold advantage may be reaped. In the first place, if at any time noxious winds arise, if the south wind corrupt the air, or if the north wind scorch the corn, and not only tear up trees by the root, but overthrow houses, and if other winds destroy the fruits of the earth, we ought to tremble under these scourges of Providence. In the second place, if, on the other hand, God moderate the excessive heat by a gentle cooling breeze, if he purify the polluted atmosphere by the north wind, or if he moisten the parched ground by south winds; in this we ought to contemplate his goodness.

(John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries: Psalms, Ps 104:3.)

Whatever the storm brings, God IS good.