The Weather Station on Grandfather Mountain

In 2018, meteorologist Katie Nickolaou noticed something odd on her monitors in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Barometric pressure was dropping fast, wind patterns were shifting in ways the models hadn't predicted, and lake-effect clouds were stacking up in unusual formations. Her colleagues shrugged it off. The official forecast called for light snow. But Katie had learned to read the signs — not just the data on screen, but the way the atmosphere feels when something big is building. She issued an unofficial warning to friends and family: stock up, stay home. Forty-eight hours later, a historic blizzard buried western Michigan under two feet of snow. People who listened to Katie were warm and prepared. Those who ignored the signs were stranded on highways and caught without supplies.

Jesus told His disciples to watch the fig tree. When its leaves appear, summer is near. He wasn't teaching botany — He was teaching readiness. The signs of His coming would be written across the sky and the nations, as unmistakable as plunging barometric pressure before a storm. But signs only matter to those who are paying attention.

The danger was never that the storm would come without warning. The danger was that people would be too distracted — too weighed down by the anxieties of life, as Jesus put it — to notice what was right in front of them. The Almighty has always given His people eyes to see. The question is whether we are watching.