Making it through the Storm

We've heard lots of news lately about the storms(hurricanes) in South Fl. and Louisiana and how many lost their lives down in Haitti, Cuban etc; It's a terrible thing to have to suffer through when everything you have is on the line. Many of these people losts everything they had but their life. Storms are of awesome power and the winds, rains, lightning, thunder are all under the control of our Heavenly Father. Did He purposely send this storm to kill people? No, but He did allow these storms to happen. This morning, I was reading about another storm that Jesus allowed in Matthew 14:22-33 I'll let you read it, but here are a few things that I got out of these passages. 1, There are lessons to be learned out of every storm we go through. Jesus used the circumstances of this storm to teach his disciples about Faith or the lack of Faith. 2. Not every storm comes about because of disobedience. Notice in vs.22 it says that Jesus MADE His disciples get into the boat. In other words, they were obeying Jesus but the storm still came about. 3. The disciples couldn't see Jesus, but He could see them. Scripture tells us that they went before Him and they Jesus went into the mountain by Himself and that He was there alone. We should always remember that trusting Christ (Faith) is without vision. We don't just trust in what we see, but what we don't see. When we can't see His hand, then we have to trust His plan. 4. Their fear eventually became their joy. They seemed to be without hope, just knowing that they were going to die in this storm. Believing they were going to sink, they became fearful. Jesus chided them a little by saying, " Oh you of little faith". How many times has He said that to me? Thousands! It's much easier to trust what we can see than to trust what we cannot see. 5. Jesus ALWAYS comes through at the right time. His timing is not always our timeing. Jesus is always available with His hand stretched out to bring you and me to Himself. Many times we just have to do this through faith and not because we can see His hand. His thoughts and ways are much higher than ours and we cannot always know where, how, why, when what He is going to do, but we can always know He is always there because He promised to never leave us or forsake us.

The folks going through these hurricanes know first hand, either they trusted or they did not. No man could stop the winds and they became catergory 4 winds. In scripture today, our Savior can stop the winds or the storms of our lives if we but just trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not into our own understandings, but in all our ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. You see, one day in the storm with Jesus, the disciples learned how to trust. Perhaps you are going through a storm in your life. Maybe the winds are howling around you, perhaps the rains are soaking you down. Be of good cheer, Jesus has His hands out waiting for you to take hold and give Him that storm.