Calming the storm

Once my family and I were evacuated from an oncoming hurricane. I have experienced cleaning up and rebuilding from the severe destruction a hurricane caused to an island. Living in the Midwest, we are prone to flooding. My oldest daughter missed more than 10 weeks of school during her senior year due to fall floods, winter ice and snow and spring flooding. All to say, water both sustains and destroys.

Many scenes throughout the Bible involve seas, oceans and water. For example, the writer of Psalm 107 writes in verse 29, "He [the Lord] made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed." Reflecting on the mighty waters, the psalmist speaks from life examples to still the raging heart.

Describing how the Lord stills the storm, the psalmist leaves to our own imagination the ferociousness of the water. We do not need much prompting to envision the devastation caused by a terrifying storm. Rushing water cuts. Hurricanes forever change a landscape. Just as storms wash away all in their path, the storms of your heart erode your own soul.

Yet God acts. He works to still the storm in his own unique way and timing. Three examples include Jesus speaking the stormwaters stop. Second, Jonah plunged himself into the ocean, being rescued by a great fish calming the storm above the deep. Third, a storm came upon a ship in the Mediterranean bound for Rome. God calmed the hearts of the two-hundred-seventy-six passengers and crew through Paul. Fourteen days later, the crew abandoned the vessel, beaching themselves on the island of Malta.

The point being in these three examples is how God both calmed and delivered from storms differently. Like every storm has similar traits but is different, the storms of your life are similar to others but distinctly your own. Just like God calmed each storm differently, he can distinctly speak to our personal storms. He may calm the storm directly as Jesus did. He may calm the storm for others through your faithful sacrifice. He may calm your heart and those around you while enduring a storm. God makes the storm be still but does so uniquely to each storm, each person, and each desired result.

Storms will rage. Lord can calm the storms of your heart and mind. In the midst of the storm, he will not abandon you.