Blog

Observation

The random, unpredictable, interconnected physically and spiritually, generational, unexplainable way the story of life plays out means that no matter how much we strive to control and create safety, we will all find ourselves thrown into the storms of life. Sometimes we may agree with Paul – “we were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure.” The question is to where do we turn, how do we respond in these storms.

 

Paul’s response – “we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God.” His reason for this – “he raises the dead.” Who is best qualified to navigate the storms of my life? Me, or the one who has power over death? Whose credentials place them better qualified?

 

Yet I find often in storms we remove ourselves from the very thing we need, and the God we can least afford to not hold onto we desert. I know often that is because we place storm blame on His shoulders. But we know for sure by looking at Jesus that God is not the storm sender. Jesus never sent storms, He calmed them, so God does as Jesus does, for Jesus shows us exactly what God is like. Maybe our inability to understand the why of storms and our desperate need for explanation may yield control, maybe this is where we go wrong. Paul never said, I understood the storm so could find my way through. No, he said I relied on God and He rescued us. Paul had the scars of the storm, but He also had the story of rescue.

 

Rescue often comes in the same unexplainable way that storms do. God’s rescue is not always in the way we demand. The healing of our loved one, the financial rescue of our business, the restored marriage, it’s not always rescued from the shape of the storm, but rescue into a new place, a new me, a new life from where the storm would have wrecked me. God is always postured to redeem me into His plans of redemption. I can say ‘always,’ because God is faithful. But if I choose to rely on me then shipwrecked and isolated on some deserted island seems to be where many of us end up. We don’t always know the why of the storms, we don’t know who is behind the storms, but we can know what God is doing – “he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again.”

 

Application

I am enjoying the journey into less of me and more of God. As I journey into my inability I find Him to be so beautiful and a new me is raised from the journey. Scripture always talks about a descent into greatness, it’s not more of me but less of me, and this is always God’s invitation, less of my false sense to discover the true me, the one who relies upon and rests in Him. I am not the navigator of the storm, I am the one who hangs on to my rescuer. Like captain Dan, in Forrest Gump, I will learn to hang on to my God in the storms of my life, no matter how fierce their winds blow, for I want to see the redeem life that comes from His rescue.

 

Response

Thank you that I am never alone in this life. Thank you for your posture and promise of rescue. Thank you that I am not immune from storms but rather I am promised that I will grow into the redeemed me as you rescue me. I am a blessed man.

Meditation

Meditation truth – We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us.

Consider:

Where do you turn in the face of growing winds?

Have you allowed storms to share you and your picture of God in a negative way, or have the storms brought you into a deeper place of His plan of restoration and discovery of His beauty?

JOURNEY DEEPER