When the Weather App is Wrong

Today – just a simple musing.

I am not a ‘fixer-up’ or ‘landscape’ type of guy. While in post-grad school, three summers in a row I destroyed three seperate lawnmowers … two of those caught on fire. If I wasn’t a monotheistic believer in the One True and Only God … I would think the ‘gods of lawn care’ had cursed me. Cursed me harshly.

When I came to my present role, I am grateful that others love lawn care and decided to upkeep my parsonage’s yard. To be fair, they may have done it for protection of the lawn and the time they had already spent effort on getting it to the wonderful beauty it is.

So, now that I am in the maintenance and upkeep of the trail behind the church, I actually got a few pieces of power hardware to assist – an Stihl power scythe and leaf blower. I also got ear protectors and hard rakes and more.

Yesterday, I worked several hours and called it quits. The weather app said no rain for several days. SOOOOO …. I left the equipment on the trail. This isn’t a national park (though we have one 5 miles away) and it’s a nice little small town that I didn’t worry about the equipment walking away.

The weather app made me feel comfortable … but I soon came to realize the weather app was wrong. Dark clouds gathered. The smell of rain was in the air. And when I checked the app – they had changed their tune to the fact that they were now saying 70% chance of a sudden thunderstorm – 39 minutes away.

I went down the trail and retrieved my tools. I placed them in the FJ and left them there overnight. And you know what, it didn’t rain.

I rely on technology a lot. Probably too much. I hit the trails with confidence from AllTrails and the Weather app. I get distance, elevation, difficulty, and circumstances (weather, available hours. etc.)

But sometimes the data is wrong. Sections of trails closed … new fee rates … trail detours … out of date information … weather changes … more. Life gets messy.

What do we do when technology lets us down? We adapt. We overcome. We improvise. (Thank you Gunny!)

But we also learn. Is there anything we can really count on?
– friends will let us down
– institutions will fail us
– technology will disappoint
– and we will blow it on our own

What can we count on?

There is an answer. You can count on God.

His love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me. You can count on Him.