What good is lightning, besides making a lot of noise?

When I was a kid, I asked my mother about lightning. She said, “Lightning is God’s electricity, and what’s in the wall socket is ours.” That made me feel sorry for God because I thought ours was better! Of course, I didn’t know what I will share with you below.
Lightning is mentioned 30 times in the Bible from Exodus 19 to Revelation 16.  Here is one example: “He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.” (Ps 135:7) It often speaks of the fear in the presence of God (Ps. 97:4) or of the suddenness of something happening, like Christ’s coming (Luke 17:24).
Benjamin Franklin is given credit for discovering, during his dangerous kite flying experiment in 1952, that lightning is electricity. We know today that water droplets in clouds build a negative charge so large that “an avalanche of electrons rushes to the ground.” This opens a channel for electrons to drain out (hinted at in Job 38:35), starting at the bottom. The return stroke is what we call lightning. On average, it carries 100,000 amperes at 30 million volts of electricity in a fraction of a second. It might streak back and forth several times or remain in the air jumping from cloud to cloud. That giant spark is 90,000° F, eight times hotter than the surface of the sun! (Weather & the Bible, by Donald DeYoung)
The rapid heating of air around the lightning results in thunder. All lightning has thunder but if the lightning is more than ten miles away, we won’t hear it. Some call that heat lightning. Since lightning is traveling 186,000 miles/sec. and thunder only 750 miles/hour, we almost always see the lightning before hearing the thunder. Every five seconds of delay means the lightning is another mile away.
What good is lightning anyway? Our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. Plants need nitrogen to grow. But plants can’t use nitrogen in the gaseous form. The electrical charge of lightning changes the nitrogen gas to nitrates useful to plants, and us. It is estimated that 100 million tons of nitrates are formed by lightning each year, half of all the useful nitrogen compounds made!
So when you are caught in one of the 2000 thunderstorms occurring on earth at any one time, remember God is working it for your good. He is the Master Designer and He does all things well.