It’s raining here and thundering in November in Michigan. I equate thunder with spring storms, but this is not the case this weekend. The other day hubby and I were about to leave a store and were stopped by lightning and a complete downpour. And let’s just say that thunder is not Tiger’s favorite sound.
Storms of any kind can carry a kind of beauty or real fear. Beauty if you are safe somewhere and just waiting for the clouds to part and the sun to shine again. Scary if you’re in a boat in the middle of a lake and a squall hits suddenly. Even if you have warning, as in some of the recent hurricanes that have hit this country, that doesn’t make the storm less frightening. I would daresay it increases the level of fear the closer you are to the threat.
Jesus’ disciples were in the middle of a lake when the waves grew frightening, even to seasoned sailors. And then Jesus came to them walking on the waves. Can you picture it? I guarantee you I cannot walk on water. My husband can’t even float, except in the Dead Sea. But even there we can’t walk on the water, even if it is as still as glass. Only the One who made the water can change its structure or command its obedience.
And yet, even in the storm, Peter had the audacity to ask Jesus to tell him to come to Him on the water. Jesus did as Peter asked, and Peter stepped over the side of that rocking boat and stepped onto unstable, writhing waves. He lasted a few seconds, maybe more, until he realized what he had done, where he was, instead of Who had commanded him to be there.
When we take our eyes off Jesus and watch the storm, we are going to sink.
But we know that, right? This isn’t new information. Because if we’ve been in Christian circles, gone to church very often, or read the Bible, we’ve probably heard this story.
So instead of focusing just on Peter or talk about getting out of the boat, can I talk about the other kinds of storms in life? We all face them. They aren’t the kind where it thunders in November or the waves threaten to sink a ship.
They are the storms when life hits us hard. The doctor’s message isn’t one we want to hear. The goals and dreams we had for our life aren’t going the way we planned. Our career isn’t going well. Our family is hurting or broken. The one we love wasn’t supposed to die. How could that friend choose suicide?
Drugs sneak in and steal a loved one. Hubby read the other day that there are now more people driving impaired on drugs than on alcohol, though alcohol is close behind. Add that to distracted drivers on their phones. And we get in our cars and trust that those impaired drivers aren’t going to slam into our car or the cars of those we love.
We wonder why there is so much mental illness, why every day we hear of someone harming someone else through violence or slavery or immorality or just plain evil. We fight back in defiance, we cry out for revenge or justice, depending on our attitude, and we shake our fists at the storms as though we can walk on water all on our own, never once stopping to think that we can’t fix our own messes. We can’t walk on water in the storm.
And yet we act like we have the power as humans to fix anything that is swirling around us.
Have you ever seen us do that? Stop a storm just by speaking to it? Walk on top of it or through it without it touching us in some way? I haven’t.
It isn’t the thunder in November that bothers me. The storms of life–those are the ones that bring tears to my eyes. I wish I had the power to fix the broken. I wish I could heal the child born to the crack addict and abusive father. I wish I could heal the baby in the womb with some inherited defect. Or heal the hurt in the heart of the wounded. Or rescue the ones who have been sold as slaves on the altar of human greed.
I wish storms didn’t include saying goodbye to a loved one too soon. Or facing rejection from one who once loved you. Or missing the life God planned for us because we took the wrong path in the road and wasted so much time. Or the choice that led to prison bars or caused the death of an innocent, like the boys in our state who threw rocks from an overpass and killed a young father.
I don’t like these kinds of storms. I wish sin didn’t exist, but I can’t deny that I’m a sinner. I hate evil, and I sure am glad God is greater and one day He who can change the structure of water and walk on waves will return and destroy evil forever. There is a thing called justice. And there is a God who will demand an accounting of all.
But I’m also so grateful that despite the storms of this life, either from the weather or life, I don’t have to face them alone. God did walk on water in the midst of a storm, and we can walk with Him in the midst of whatever life throws at us because He is with us. If we admit we need Him, as Peter did when he started to sink, He will rescue us from ourselves.
He never refuses a request for transforming our lives with saving grace. It is His desire for everyone to know Him and be saved.
Knowing Him won’t make the storms go away because we live in a broken world. But knowing Him will make the storms bearable. We don’t have to sink into the waves or the pit of despair.
How do we walk on water in the storm? We walk through the storm holding onto Jesus’ hand and He will get us through.
#honestprayers #livegrace #livehope
