Be the Storm

After a tumultuous life upset we have a tendency to crave peace incessantly. Throw in multiple life-storms and you've got yourself a Professor of Peace, graduated from the School-of-Hard-Knocks.

Our favorite verses to teach the masses are...

"Be STILL and know that I am God."

"WAIT, I say, upon the Lord."

"Peace. Be STILL."

"He was not in the earthquake, he was in the STILL and QUIET voice."
(Oh, glory! I get chills at that DOUBLE emphasis on "still AND quiet." Yessss.)

Truly, in our age of instantaneous food, instantaneous information access, instantaneous problem solving, we expect instantaneous magic for our problems. As a whole we have too hard of a time chilling out in a peaceful, still demeanor. If God doesn't provide for our need immediately, we end up attempting to rig the solution ourselves. Then, like Abraham with Haggar, we end up in troubles and heartache God never intended we bear. We hurt other people with our fumbling attempts to accomplish a thing. When all along the solution was ALREADY worked out, it simply wasn't time for us to know what His solution was. 

But there's another kind of "wait on the Lord" we need to also master...

Isaiah 62:7

And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

In the scripture we find a famous story where a storm blew in while Jesus and his disciples were on a boat. I completely understand the tax collector being afraid of the storm. But that the well-trained and experienced fishermen were afraid tells us a lot about the ferocity of that storm. I have never been able to understand why Christ was asleep! 

Well... Actually, I personally sleep really well on trains, and other vehicles with rhythmic movement. So, I can understand why he was able to sleep on the rocking boat. Plus, as a Florida girl, I sleep particularly deeply in thunder storms. The bigger the storm, the deeper my slumber. But, since my perception of Christ is that he knows all, is incredibly concerned for humanity's well-being... WHY WAS HE ASLEEP?!

I want Christ to present that first-time-mom behavior. The mom who awakens every few minutes to go check on her baby. The mom who leans close to the baby's chest and face to feel the rhythms of life. I suppose that image would actually be symbolic of The Church, since The church is our "mother." And since Christ is the husband...

OF COURSE HES SLEEPING!

Oh, the suppositions of this story...

We draw conclusions based on our experiences. His experiences are not ours. Which is why we've got to TRUST His plan, and refuse to meddle.

The problem of the sea did not bring Jesus out of his sleep. The disciples brought Jesus out of his sleep. And they didn't approach him with tact and ritual either.

They were PANICKED.

They were EXASPERATED.

In an emotional state they asked, "Do you not care that we perish?!" 

In our trials, and fires, and struggles we cannot blow it by trying to fix matters ourselves. But neither can we fail to seek the Lord's intervention either. Praying in desperate appeal is not what God is opposed to. Meddling while we wait is what messes up His plan. 

We are instructed time and time again through example and direction that our emotional expression is to be TO HIM, not to the people around us. But it's an emotional expression, indeed...

The FERVENT prayer of a righteous man avails much.

The prophet prayed EARNESTLY.

Pray with GROANING, minus words.

Jesus instructed that we pray as insistently as the widow's consistent approach to an unjust judge.

When impossible situations come to our lives, our correct approach is to become the storm that gets Jesus up. Throw etiquette and ritual out the window! Bench the appropriate societal acceptances! A desperate storm demands a desperate voice! There are many explanations as to why an all-knowing God "needs" humanity to approach him in this no-holds-bar method of prayer. Including the insight of Daniel's answer to prayer being halted due to an angelic struggle. I don't know exactly why we need to be the storm, I just know that sometimes we do.

Give him no rest until he has given you a reason to praise!