The Storm

by Tom Sloan

God is creating a storm for you. No, you will not like it, and yes, it will be hard. This storm will be a perfect one in the sense that He will be in charge of it all – intensity, losses, casualties, weaknesses, tears and desperation. God is not a child abuser, but, He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able.

The storm will reveal and intensify your fears and doubts. You will slowly, if not suddenly, come to discover weaknesses of your own that you were not conscious of. Panic will most assuredly set in. You will have to learn how to overcome your ¨fight or flight¨ tendencies. If you manage to settle these natural urges, you will be whacked upside the head with the revelation of the following – you can`t fix it. You will not be able to fix it because you can`t control even the smallest of events. Fast and pray all you wish, but you will not be able to so much as calm the smallest of waves. All the while, your shipmates will be shouting at you to dissipate the storm. But you cannot because you didn`t create it.

I call the messy and sinful lives of Abraham, David and Jacob as evidence for the following. No matter how unfaithful or sinful you have been, these things do not produce storms. They may produce a wave of consequence here and there, but not storms. You should not feel guilty or responsible for creating the storm you are in. You may say, yes, but my sin. And I say – for all have sinned. There is very little that a child of God can pin on sin in a storm because of two things. First, it is finished and second, Christ ever liveth to make intersession for us. I am not talking about a license to sin; I am talking about the sovereignty of God. God made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, and for this, sin, in and of itself, does not possess the power to create a storm – a mess, true, but not a storm. My sin is no more in control of my storm than the weather man is the rain. Your sin didn’t cause the storm neither can your sinlessness relieve you from it.

Here is a terrifying question. What does it mean when the storm originated in your obedience and not your sin? Your obedience, more than anything, will probably be the root cause of the storm. And I point to the fact that you have obeyed because – it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So, if you wish to play the manipulation game as a means to calm the storm, you will have to jump ship and stop obeying. But, the storm is already raging, and ship jumping will not solve your problems. If you obey, God will probably send a storm so you can understand that you are not in control of the truth of the gospel. You will be so busy hanging on to the railing of the ship that you will not have the energy to make the truth of God`s grace bring forth fruit.

What did you expect when you began to believe, proclaim and walk in God`s grace? The disciples suffered torrents of persecution because they preached the gospel of grace. Legalism is attractive because it seems to deter the most violent of storms, but it doesn’t.   

If you have obeyed the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ, then know, that the storm you are in at this very moment, is God`s perfect, loving and merciful will for your life. Believe it or not, you have been included as company with the ones who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight and turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

You can rest in Jesus knowing that you did not create your storm.