Snow swirled around me as I drove our battered car through the first snowstorm of the new year. I followed the taillights of a truck, barely able to see anything else. But I didn't curse the weather. After all, if I didn't at least tolerate snow, I wouldn't be living in Michigan. But when I thank God for snow, it's much more than tolerance--it's a reminder and a reflection of how he sustains his creation, how he sustains me.
There are a few ways I see God's divine sustenance in the snow, the first being its protection of the plants in winter. He sends snow to insulate the vegetation on the face of the earth, allowing even a dormant period to contribute to its cycle of growth. If even the plants are protected while they rest every year, who's to say that a period of rest in my life can't factor into God's plan to grow me to be more like him?
He's protected and sustained his plants every day since day three of creation. He watered them with droplets from below the earth when he still walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, and he has not neglected them since. If he takes all this care with the rest of his creation, why not me?
The snowfall reminds me not only of how the creator protects and sustains, but also how he has purified me spiritually. Isaiah 1:18 records these words of the Lord: "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." This takes on a new meaning when I look at Christ's sacrifice through the prism of a fresh snowfall.
As snow comes down through the layers of our atmosphere, it takes on the impurities of the air. This leaves us with fresher air to breathe, even though we humans, through our own industrial efforts, released most of the pollutants in the first place. This display of his Nature, filtering out physical impurities, is nothing compared to his provision of a way to cleanse our spiritual impurities.
I am far from the first to be reminded of divine sustenance by watching God's blessings fall from the heavens. When the Israelites were brought out of slavery and into a desert, God sustained them with manna from the sky--only enough for each day.
The writer of Exodus goes out of his way to describe the beauty and mystery of manna:
"And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:14-15)
I don't get to see a pillar of fire as appeared before the Israelites, or see God taking a nap or eating fish as the disciples saw. But I can train myself to see the reminders of divine sustenance in his creation. If I have evidence that God can sustain everything from a wilting winter blade of grass to a nation of ancient people, I must believe that he can sustain me. I will humbly take his sustenance, this bread that is the same every day, yet never leftovers.