A man who was in Louisiana after a
terrible hurricane passed through and destroyed many homes & many lives
recently told a story to me. The man asked the captain of a shrimp boat about
the storm, and the captain replied with a most unexpected response.
He said
“Oh, beautiful storm”. To which the man replied, “really?
Beautiful? How?” The captain replied “We’ll you see when a storm
comes over the ocean, it oxygenates the water. When that happens it causes more
shrimp to surface to the top, so the longer the storm stays over the water the
better the harvest. He said we just had the best harvest I’ve seen in my
life”
Perspective becomes the reality.
Scripture tells us that WHEN the storms come, not IF, that God is there
with us. The gospel submits to us a story of when the storm was so bad on the
water, the disciples run to Jesus who is sleeping in the back of the boat. Jesus
asks why they were so afraid and then in reaches out to the waters and calms
them. The disciples, are speechless, I’d imagine jaws were on the deck.
In my life I’ll be honest when the storms in life come, I freak
out too often than not. I get intimidated at the size of the waves, and I
cringe at the sound of the thunder, and the cracks of lightening strike my
veins. I let panic and fear settle in, with questions like “What if I
don’t make it out of this, what if people find out I don’t have it all together,
what if I get hurt by this storm?
I’ll be honest I’m a people pleaser, and I care way too much about
what people think about me, I need God’s help to allow me to release that care
because it does not bring me life. I care too much about offending people, and
hurting people, sadly enough even at the cost of what God may be saying to me
in the process.
I thought if I was on a boat, and I was witnessing a monumental storm on the horizon,
it would be easy for me to marvel and let fear settle in my body. Meanwhile as
the captain calls out orders “Tighten the sails, change course Northwest,
put some ores in the water, and paddle!” I imagine I would be less
focused on the storm, and more in tune with what the task was at hand.
Eventually I would find myself coming out of the storm, and having learned a
thing or two, not to mention a bond of sorts with the captain who calmed me down and got me to focus.
I think when the “storms” of life come, it’s no different. We can stand on
the edge of the boat and let fear and sheer panic settle in or we can chose to
be still for a moment and find the voice of God and listen to what He’s trying
to say so that we don’t just survive the storm, but we learn and grow from our experience of being in it.
Just like the storm oxygenated the water, stirring up a massive shrimp harvest,
so the storms of life oxygenate our hearts allowing God to bring great stuff to
the surface. Listen, be still, and remember God never leaves the boat when you
are in the storms of life, press in and come out with a greater understanding
and purpose. The more we realize this truth, the greater we can attest that God is good and loves us no matter what we have, are, and will go through in life.
