In the Storm

​July 18, 2017 was the first morning of the vacation I was on with my wife and her family! We were at Panama City, Florida and we were staying in a condo! There was 12 of us staying in this condo! I do not know about you but that is a lot of people in a condo! I enjoyed it a lot, it is just not what I am used to! The wallpaper is dated but very “beachy” and it sits inside a beautiful facility where there are tennis courts, a pool, ping-pong table, and pool (the one with the eight ball)! The grass is very think and green! It truly is an awesome place to go on vacation!

On the first morning of the vacation there was a storm! Now I am not talking about an ordinary storm, I am talking about a STORM!!! Around 6:00 a.m. the rain began! My wife and I were staying in a loft bedroom, on the second floor where there is a long window covered by blinds above our heads. On the main floor there was another window above the sliding door to go outside, which is also covered by blinds! There was nothing gradual about this storm! It started off as a torrential down pour of rain! It was slamming against the roof, the window at our loft, the other window, and the entire condo! There were distant flashes of lighting and closer crashes of thunder. The wind was causing trees to bend and beach chairs to be tossed around. This was one powerful storm!

Obviously this storm woke me up, so I went downstairs to spend time with my Lord! Before I could even begin to start my time with Him I was just captivated by this storm! It was truly amazing! I was in awe of what was happening outside! This reminded me of a very familiar passage of scripture!

"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, 'Save us, Lord; we are perishing.' And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?' Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?'" 
Matthew 8:23-27 (ESV)

If I would have been in that boat with the disciples and Jesus I promise you that I would not have been the guy to go wake up Jesus. I would have started throwing nonessential things off the boat! Then I would have grabbed a bucket and start scooping water out of the boat! I would try to survive the storm on my own power!

Too often we try to do this same thing in our own lives when we are in the middle of a storm! We try to figure out the best way to solve the problem or to get out of the problem so we could "calm the storm". The hard truth is, you and I can never calm the storms in our life. There is nothing that we can do to calm the storms that happened, are currently happening, and will happen in our life.

We must learn how to in the midst of a storm, trust the One that can calm the storm! We must trust the One who has authority over the storm! No storm that comes our way will catch God by surprise! He knows what we are going through and it has passed through His hands! We must trust the One that can calm the storm-Jesus!