Saturday, June 13, 2009

What if the storm continues?

Last October, my brother-n-law emailed me an insightful quote that I’ve been recently been reminded of: Sometimes God calms the storm and other times He calms the sailor. I think writing that Perfect Storm blog triggered my memory of that email. Let me share my observations – perhaps they will be helpful to you…


“This kinda goes along with how my prayer-style has changed through the years… I used to always pray, “please Lord, get me OUT of this storm now!”…


then when I realized that we can grow in spiritual maturity going through our storms, my prayers changed to, “Lord, give me the strength to endure this storm”…


then as I realized that we often learn spiritual lessons going through storms, my prayers changed to “Lord, give me the wisdom and understanding to maneuver through the storm and learn it’s lesson”


Though I hardly have prayer down to a science by any means, I see that my prayer-style has changed from the focus of God evacuating me out… to God getting me through the storm via the brute force of strength… to God getting me through the storm via the finesse of wisdom and understanding…


Now days I’ve come to the realization that I need to pray that God gives me the proper combination of strength and wisdom… the proper balance between enduring the storm and maneuvering the storm…


So it is true that God sometimes calms the storm, while other times calming the sailor… here’s another way of viewing this… sometimes He doesn’t change the storm, He just changes the sailor…”


Do I believe that God can speak directly into our storm and bring immediate peace? Absolutely! I have experienced this in my own life and have observed it in the lives of many people through the years. Divine intervention can take on many forms.


But what if God doesn’t calm the storm and lets it continue on? Does that mean that He’s abandoned us or somehow failed us in the midst of our storm? Absolutely not! Does that mean that it’s our fault or our faith was weak? That may not be the case either.


We can’t fit God into a box, as if He has to do this or has to do that. Certainly His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts than ours (Isaiah 55:9). None of us can pretend to have God completely figured out. Perhaps He weighs out all the possible outcomes of divine intervention and chooses what He feels is best for our souls, regardless of our physical convenience or personal preferences.


It seems that there are several possibilities of divine intervention during a storm: a) God may speak peace into the storm and the environment which initially caused the storm is changed, b) God may speak peace into the sailor, allowing him / her to continue on through the remainder of the storm or c) He does not intervene and allows us to experience whatever the storm deals out. Perhaps there are even more possibilities that aren’t immediately coming to mind at the moment.


Ummmm, I don’t like option three. Can we just remove it? I wish I could, but I can’t.


The only promise we have regarding option three is if we built our life upon Christ, the rock / cornerstone, that the rains, floods and winds would not overcome us (Matthew 7:24-27, 21:42). Though the picture painted is that of a house built upon a rock foundation rather than a boat out in the water, the overall concept of deliverance is the same.


The rains, floods and winds will all hit our lives sometime, someplace but God is always there with us. Which option of deliverance is ultimately His choice. That choice may not yield the results we want, but God always has it under control. Regardless of which choice He makes, remember that there is no better place to be than in God’s hands.


Just some more thoughts to ponder…

No comments: