Keeping calm in the storm

I have been wanting to share the awesome message from last weekends services all week, but due to a pretty hectic time hasnt permitted me the chance to yet. But as I was driving home tonight there was one piece of scripture from one of the services over the weekend that stood out in my head....or to be more accurate, it was the message that came from that scripture.

Luke 8:22 is a scripture that almost anyone who has heard of Jesus will know of, at least vaguely. It talks of when Jesus is crossing the water in the boat with his disciples and the wild storm comes up against them. When the disciples see the storm in on the brink of destroying them, they run to Jesus who is sleeping at the time and beg him to save them. He gets up and calms the storm, but is disappointed by the lack of faith that the disciples has shown in the middle of the storm.

The parallel's between this story and our lives today are so similiar, its amazing. At first glance you might say "I never travel in a small boat across wild waters" but when you relate it to your life you will see the common parts. In our lives we face storms, bad situations in our lives, problems that we cant see any answer to. Typically in these situation people will run to God and tell Him their problem and beg for Him to save them. They will have lost all hope, they feel there is no way that will survive this situation. Does any of this sound familiar?

But do you really think that a loving and holy God would allow us to go through these situations alone? As my favourite piece of scripture says in Hebrews 13:5

God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

God has told us that we will never be alone, He will always be with us. All we need to do is trust Him, to have faith in Him. Its put another way in Psalm 9:10 - 

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.

Again the focus is on the fact that as long as we have faith in the Lord, we will never be alone.

We need to stop ourselves from being caught up in the storm and remember the one eternal truth...God loves us and nothing can separate us from Him, as it highlights in Romans 8:39 -

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As we gain a more intimate relationship with Christ, the more we listen to and speak with the Holy Spirit that lives within us once we are born again, the more we will understand the will of God and that as long as we live for Christ, our prayers will not go unanswered, as it says in 1 John 5:14-15 -

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

But you may wonder why does God allow us to go through these situations at all? Well sometimes our faith needs to be tested. Its one thing to say that we trust in the Lord, but its a totally other thing to demonstrate that faith when the storms come upon us. Think of it like an exam at school...you might tell your teacher you know all the content, but until you have completed the exam successfully you cant really demonstrate your understanding. Finally through these storms our relationship with Christ grows stronger and stronger as we come to trust in Him and our faith grows.

We just need to trust in Christ our saviour. Psalm 32:10 underlines the great promise -

Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

There are just so many great scriptures that highlight the fact that as long as we trust in God, we will always find a solution to our problems, a safe passage out of our storms. I also suggest reading Psalm 91.

We are bound to face storms throughout our lives. But we need to always remember the fact that Jesus is always with us and will never leave us, for His love for us is eternal. Christ knows our every situation, so next time we face the storm we should be telling the storm about Jesus instead of telling Jesus about the storm.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

(Proverbs 3:5-6)