LIFE’S STORMS
Good Morning Friends,
A storm blew through South Florida yesterday and still lingers as I write this. It got me thinking this morning in the dark about what we see about storms and what we do not. It got me thinking about the storms in the Bible and how we face our own Life’s Storms.
Scripture: there was hail with fire flashing continually in the midst of it, such heavy hail as had never fallen in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
Exodus 9:24(NRSV)
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.
Jonah 1:4 (NRSV)
and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger.
Luke 8:23 (NRSV)
and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.”
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Job 1:19 and 38:1-7 (NRSV)
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
1 Kings 19:11-13 (NRSV)
Message: Today we have a series of Bible verses and stories on storms. Sometimes God is in the storms and sometimes not. Meditate on them and know that there is no option for faithfulness in life’s storms. See it in the story of Job and Noah and the Flood in Genesis 6
and Moses and the Plagues and Jesus walking on water in
Matthew 14, and Jesus calming a storm and in the story of Paul’s shipwrecked
Acts 27. There are so many stories of storms in the Bible that I cannot list them all so I redirect you to your Bible and then draw a focus on one of the oldest and most uncomfortable of stories in Job. Friends, Job teaches us that God is in charge, what he says goes, and there is absolutely nothing any one of us can do about it, that we have precisely zero right to question him, zero authority, and zero power to stop him…dwell on that for a moment and let the storm blowing through South Florida and the storm of today’s scriptures and the storm of the Spirit speak into your life with the hope of a brighter day to come.
Pray we know that there are some storms we can avoid and some we cannot. Pray we realize that storms can relate to our sin, success, sickness and suffering and that we should pray through all of them. Pray that in life’s storms we discover Jesus with us and calming us.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 