Heat Lightning

Fellow night owls may be enjoying the phenomenon known as Heat Lightning. It’s rather strange- tonight is warm, pleasant, dry and windless. It’s also silent, yet the sky flashes every 1-2 seconds. There’s really no such thing as heat lightning- what I can see to the west and north is the lightning of a thunderstorm over fifteen miles away. The light, which travels further, outpaces the thunder’s bang, which tonight cannot be heard at all. Indeed, the storm might even be 270 miles off, the distance at which lightning can still be observed. Although the spectacle is rather fantastic, without the terror of thunderclaps and pouring rain, it is a harbinger of lively weather to come.

The Lord Jesus said:

For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:27

Somewhere, dogs are howling and children cowering, as thunder and lightning boom and flash overhead (the BBC’s weather map suggests Belfast to the west and Edinburgh to the north). Here. All is calm. But our turn shall come. So when Jesus returns. Though He will descend to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, somehow, we’ll see it here.

Maranatha.