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You’re grounded.
Those are the words no teenager wants to hear.
But they also happen to be the two words we most want to hear in the midst of an electrically active thunderstorm.
Lightning-producing weather events are surprisingly common.
Every year the earth experiences about 16 million such storms. That means there are 43,000 every day, or 1,800 every hour. Lightning flashes eight million times every 24 hours somewhere on the planet. That means 100 bolts of lightning every second.
The power, intensity, and stark beauty of lightning bolts have always fascinated humanity.
And the danger is very real. Just this week, Norwegian Olympic bronze medalist Alpine skier Audun Groenveld was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning as he walked toward his family’s cabin. He was 49.
Divine beings like Zeus and Baal were traditionally depicted as hurlers of thunderbolts. Job says that God “lets loose his lightning to the ends of the earth,” and Psalm 135 declares that all the aspects of a summer storm are evidence of God’s power.
Despite generations of scientific inquiry, however, lightning remains mysterious.
Meteorologists aren’t entirely sure how cloud-borne charged particles trigger such dramatic electrical events.
And no one claims to know how and where the next bolt is going to strike.
Scientists are on much safer ground, however, when debunking the most common myths about lightning.
Did Ben Franklin really fly a kite during a thunderstorm, hoping to attract a bolt that would electrically charge a key hanging from the line? Few historians believe that actually happened. What everyone agrees is that it is an exceedingly bad idea to try to fly a kite during a thunderstorm. The results could definitely be electrifying.
Is it true that lightning never strikes the same place twice? Absolutely not. Sometimes tall targets like the Empire State Building are struck multiple times during the same storm.
How about wearing sneakers during a thunderstorm? Hasn’t it been demonstrated that the layer of rubber touching the ground protects you from lightning?
Unfortunately, no.
Even though a lightning strike lasts only a fraction of a second, it typically heats the surrounding atmosphere to three times the temperature of the sun. No pair of Air Jordans is equal to such a burst of energy.
Ben Franklin understood that a lightning bolt has to go somewhere, or its effects might be catastrophic.
That’s why he is credited with promoting the use of the lightning rod, a metal bar that is fixed at the highest point of a building or object. A wire is attached to the rod and then anchored several feet below the ground. Since a bolt is typically drawn to the highest part of a structure, the electricity is carried away from the building (where it might start a fire) and discharged into the ground – something that can safely handle its ferocity.
Human beings have to be grounded, too.
And not just during thunderstorms.
We have to be planted deeply enough in something that can handle the shocks we might receive this week: that phone call that will come at 3:00 am; the client who will suddenly decide to renege on a crucial business promise; the child who will sit down next to us and say, “Mom, I have to tell you something.”
How can we handle such bolts out of the blue?
We must be grounded in truth. In character. In virtue. In mission.
Which is just another way of saying we must be deeply anchored in God.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified… for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Trusting him is the ultimate ground wire for whatever might happen to come our way.