Floods, Thunder, And Advent Hope

The lights are up and the carols are back, but the readings turn us toward floods, thieves in the night, and the unsettling image of two women at work, only one “taken.” That tension is exactly where our conversation begins. We move from the warmth of seasonal nostalgia into a Texas thunderstorm that rattled the house, cut the power, and revealed what practical readiness looks like when everything shakes at once. Then we trace that same instinct into the life of the soul: noticing the signs, taking the next right step, and refusing to sleep through the moment when love needs us awake.

From there, we share a scene from summer camp—a quiet circle, a heavy heart, and a reluctant nudge to speak. No big plan, no perfect script, just presence that made space for healing. That story becomes a lens for Advent, where readiness is not fear or prediction but availability. We explore how ordinary routines can become thresholds for grace and how the “two women grinding grain” may be less about timelines and more about recognition. Two people, same task; only one senses the invitation and moves with it.

Across Pastor Darren's message this week we offer simple practices to train the heart: place yourself where grace passes by, build micro-moments of prayerful attention, and act on small nudges quickly. We name the distractions that keep us dull and the habits that sharpen our sight. By the end, Christmas is no longer a countdown to manage but a presence to meet—here, in kitchens and sidewalks and late-night living rooms, where storms still rumble and quiet mercies break in. If this resonates, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review with the sign you’re watching for this week. Your story might be the nudge someone else needs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Cheer Meets Stark Scriptures
• 0:46 Texas Storm And Lightning Strike
• 4:58 Asking How This Prepares Us For Advent
• 6:38 Youth Camp Story And Unexpected Calling
• 10:51 Rethinking Readiness And The Two Women
• 12:45 Advent Invitations And Closing Amen

Transcript

Pastor Darren: 0:00

Well, are we ready for the season now? We got Thanksgiving done. Are you ready? Right. Oh, it's exciting. You know, Home Depot can finally put up all their Christmas stuff. I know they've been waiting. Right? We can start playing Christmas music. I know everybody's been holding off. You know, but it is interesting. We get into this season with so much levity and so much lightness and all those songs that we enjoy, the foods we enjoy, the presents and the gift giving. And it's such a great season. And then we get to the Christian calendar, and all of a sudden we get Noah and flooding and wiping out the earth. Right? We get two women who are grinding meal and one gets taken and one does not get taken. And then the owner who has to prepare for the thieves who will come in the night and take his stuff. You ready to make a pie now? Right? You're ready to go put the Christmas lights up? This is uh, you know, this is how we get you ready for Christmas here in the Christian church. We get you all excited by talking about the time in Genesis in which God wiped out most of everybody on the earth. Right? It just sometimes you wonder when you're getting into this Christian calendar. The story to me actually, it reminds me of a story in my own life. For a while, I was appointed out in Texas outside Austin. And I don't know how many of you have experience with Texas, maybe experience even over a long period of time where you were able to experience a Texas rainstorm. Have you ever been in a Texas rainstorm? Right? The kind where the water is just if you happen to be driving, it feels like your car is gonna cave in. It's coming down so hard. When you're uh uh um in your house, you're a little nervous that it might be too much water for your roof to hold everything up. Has anybody been in that kind of situation, Texas or otherwise, right? A few of us, you know what I'm talking about, right? So I remember when we were living out in Texas, and it was one night where the kids had gone to sleep. Uh, I was actually up in bed as well. Brenda wasn't ready to go to bed, I guess. She was downstairs watching TV, and all of a sudden, on a thunderstorm night, we get the loudest boom I've ever heard. Right? And we're jumping out of bed as quick as I can jump out of bed, right? Because you know something's going, something's gone wrong at this point. It was that kind of boom. And the storm was already running. So you're already half ready for whatever the heck might happen, right? Or what might be happening. Now, for me, I go to bed and you know, some very uh familiar clothes will call them. So I had to get, you know, some pants on and uh get myself ready to be able to go, what the heck's happening in our house? Right? And I come downstairs and we're talking to each other. We're like, this is this was crazy. And then of course we start smelling gas, right? And we're like, okay, well, I'm not a genius, but I know that's not good. Right? You're smelling gas in your house, and you're thinking this isn't something we ought to be uh experiencing or believing in. I I think the power went out, right? The whole smoke alarms went out. It was it was quite a night. Meanwhile, it the rain didn't stop with that, right? The rain was continuing to run, but we're thinking we've gotta get we gotta get out of this house, right? So we go over and neighbors are two houses over, right? But that's a trip when it's had rain in Texas rain, right? And there's lightning and thunderstorm and all of this is going on, and you're but you but you're thinking, well, it's gas going on. We learned a bit about my daughter as well. She must have been five or so at that time, and um, she slept through it. So we thought, all right, well, you're safe if things go wrong. You're gonna sleep through whatever the heck happens, right? So I end up picking her up, we carry her across, we get over, and we kind of huddle over there. The gas people show up. Uh, they did the simplest thing, which it's you know, when you're a young dad and don't know simple things, just turned off the gas at the oven, and and that pretty much solved it. And we were able to go back home, and you know, and things started getting back in in order. But what we learned was that lightning had hit the house. It had actually hit our house, and and uh the only like recognizable damage turned out to be that gas line that undid there and and then was blowing into the house. But lightning hit our house, and clearly we were not fully ready for such an experience. So when I read this passage today about Noah being the way we uh uh teach ourselves about being prepared, about the women, some getting taken, some not getting taken, you know, and the boss needing to be aware of themes, so we better be ready. I think of that story. And I'm telling you, when I think of that story, my next thought is boy, am I much more ready for Advent now? Christmas may as well come today because I'm ready. I don't know if you feel the same way reading this passage. It just takes me into this weird space of what are we thinking? How is this how is this getting us ready? How is this inspiring us to prepare for the coming of the birth of Christ? You know, that our as Christians are evidence of of God's true and deep love for us in the flesh here amongst us. How does that get us ready for that? How does that even teach us about getting ready? But after that, I started thinking and remembering another story from my past. Some of you know I did a lot of youth ministry uh before I switched into the big kid ministry here with the the big churches. You know, I was uh running around uh uh with young people, kind of like Nancy, only I was a little more sane. I didn't do the crazy things she did. I will never do a mystery night. This is my commitment. Yeah, oh, a mystery week. I'm out. But I remember as a uh youth uh pastor, youth director in the churches, we would go and do the summer camps. Right. And for us, we live down near the lazy W United Methodist camp down there. I think from here you might be going to Wrightwood. Probably used to go to Colby, uh, but uh we don't go to Colby anymore. If you go to Colby, that road that scared you to death, yeah, we don't drive that road anymore. So you don't go to Colby anymore. But I was at summer camp, and I remember being in uh a family group, which is what we called the small discussion groups that you would be in when you were at summer camp, right? An opportunity to process whatever lessons or theme was going on, and you'd have usually two leaders and then some kids, and then it was just it was kind of the group that you got a little more intimate with, along with your cabin over the course of the week. And I remember I was paired off with uh a friend of mine, Vicky Richards, and uh we felt like we were a pretty good teaming of people that we thought we'd done enough camps and and had good heart for all of these kids. But uh secretly, what I knew is I'm kind of a nut. I'm mostly there to entertain everybody. That's my main job when I'm at summer camp is to make sure it's fun, not like here. And we were doing closing night, and on closing night, uh we recognized that one of our kids was having a really emotional time. It was a weighted time, and his head was down, and he was kind of feeling the weight of things. Some of you who've been on this kind of experience might have had a a similar story in your life of just that the poignance of the moment, you know, God's presence weighing so heavy, you're just feeling the emotions, and and he's feeling it. And my good friend Vicky Richards says, Go talk to him. Go over, he needs somebody right now. And I'm like, who, you know, well, I'm a funny guy. Am I gonna go talk to him? What am I bringing to to this to this party, as it were? But you don't go against Vicky Richards. So I got up and I went over and I talked to him, and we really had a good moment. And I was able to be kind of helpful to him. I like to use the words now in my life, that I was able to be God's instrument, be able to speak the words that God would have spoken to him, that Jesus would have spoken to him in a way that uh there was some inspiration, there was some comfort, there was some healing that was able to happen. I I got to be, I got to be that that guy. I think of that story because I I don't necessarily look at uh at myself in that time and say, you know, I really was uh ready. I made myself ready. You know, I I don't know that I could claim that. You can hear it in the way I tell the story, right? Vicky had to goose me along to get over and do that. So in some ways, I don't know that I really felt like uh uh I was a ready person, but I was in the right place. I was where I knew I had seen God's presence, I had felt God's strength, I had seen and experienced opportunities to be in that that space where I got to be that love, where I got to experience that love, where I got to to to know what it feels like to be part of what makes this world a blessing. A blessing to me, a blessing to those that I'm able to engage. I knew enough to get myself to that camp. And I wonder if this is a little bit of what Jesus is trying to get across with this passage. We don't always know when the opportunity to be an instrument of God's love, when the opportunity to get to experience God's living presence amongst us, with us, we don't know when that's coming. It might happen now, it might happen later today, it might not happen for a week. We don't really know all the ways that God is going to be working through this. But you know, to be in that space where we actually get that opportunity and to see it coming and to be able to live into it, I think is what Jesus might be pointing to here. In this context, I look at that metaphor of these two women who are grinding meal together. One of them gets taken by God and one of them does not. We hear that story and we're thinking, oh, it's some sort of rapture kind of thing where one gets to be with God and one gets to be somewhere else that we all don't want to be. But when I look at it through this new lens, this lens that says, you know, God's God's offering opportunities for us all the time to have that experience, to be that experience for other people. And sometimes we're ready for it, and sometimes we're not. Just like the two women who are grinding a meal. So as we enter into this Advent season, as as we start getting ready for this coming Christmas Eve in which we we're gonna celebrate the living presence of God in this on this earth, the evidence of God's deep, deep love for us. I'm wondering if we're going to see the opportunity, see the signs of what God is doing, of where Christ is real. Are we gonna see these opportunities over this season? Or are we gonna miss it? Let's hope we see those signs and see those opportunities and that we're able to live into it and that the birth of Christ becomes something as meaningful as it can be for us, life changing in deep, deep ways. Amen.