Trusting God in the Storm
Deuteronomy 31:6 (CEB)
Be strong! Be fearless! Don’t be afraid and don’t be scared by your enemies, because the LORD your God is the one who marches with you. He won’t let you down, and he won’t abandon you.
Do you ever just stop and take a look at your life, your situation, or your circumstance and feel overwhelmed? The anxiousness settles in to your chest. The doubts start to seep in to your thoughts. The weight piles on your shoulders. Your storm is huge. Your circumstance is too much to handle. Your situation is permanent.
Or is it?
Trusting God in the middle of your storm is one of the hardest things to do as a Christian. If you were to look at your situation as a literal storm, it’s quite a scary picture, isn’t it? You’re standing in the middle of crashing waves, rolling thunder, threatening lightning, high winds, piercing rain. Your clothes are being blown in different directions. Your face and hair are drenched with the rain. You can’t see more than a few feet in front of you. You call out to Jesus, but you wonder if He can hear you above the sounds of your storm. You wonder if He sees you struggling. You start to wonder if He cares. Just as the disciples called to Him in Mark 4:38, “…don’t you care if we drown?”
We can question how we got to the be in the middle of the storm. We can even ask where the storm came from. Honestly though, will it make a difference? We can’t lean on our own understanding of why things are happening in our lives. Put your trust in Jesus. He’s been through every single thing we can imagine. Every feeling you have right now, Jesus has experienced it. You are not, nor will you ever be, alone. You’re not the only one who has felt this way. You’re not the only one that has experienced these feelings. You’re not the first person to go through your situation.
We are told to be strong and fearless. Not to be scared by our enemies. Why? Because Jesus is with us! Your enemy isn’t a person that has wronged you, or the situation you’re currently in, or your circumstance. Our enemy, according to Ephesians 6:12, is “…rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.” Our enemy is Satan.
We have to always keep in mind that while we’re in the middle of our own storms, Jesus Christ is always with us. He’s there to guide us. He’s there to calm the storm or to calm US as He leads us THROUGH it. We may have to go through our storms to learn from them. Learn to depend on God. Learn to give our worries to Him. Learn to trust Him.