A few days ago, I wrote a response to a prompt on coincidences. Then my wife and I went to the doctor. It was a bright, hot muggy day. Not a cloud in the sky. Well not one I could see anyway.

After waiting the better part of 2 hours, we were called back to an exam room. Within minutes, I heard a familiar noise.

Now let me pause to explain. In the waiting room, there were big windows through which I saw big blue clear skies. It was with confidence that I entered the totally enclosed exam room.

It was why I doubted my ears when I heard the little noise. A few minutes later, there was no doubt. I ran to the main entry door and realized it was to late. It would be useless at this point to raise the windows. The interior of the car was very likely soaked. To run out there would only make sure I was good and soaked too.

If we could consider rain an intelligent thing of life, I could say it did it on purpose. It had something against me or was taking a vengeance out on me. The rain poured down hard! The lightning flashed repeatedly. The sky was dark before night.

I suppose I could voice a conclusion that God was angry with me for some reason. He might have been, I guess. However, I’m more apt to write this one up to coincidence. Frankly, at the time, I was beginning to wonder.

There is no doubt in my mind that God can and does use what seems to be natural to chastise us. It is for our benefit. Certainly, it is a bad idea to ignore the chastisement of the Lord. The Jews did it dispute the warnings of the prophet, Jaramiah and they suffered dearly for it. They were told their punishment for abandoning God’s word would be 40 years of captivity and they suffered because of their unbelief. They chalked their problems to coincidence.

History does tend to repeat. Today, there are those that don’t believe in God’s punishment. They believe the problems of our country are nothing but coincidence.

For the time being I’m calling this thunder storm a coincidence. However, if coincidences as this become more frequent, I’m going to start reconsidering.