Finding God’s Peace in the Storm

How could I ever survive a day of this life without my faithful Father literally carrying me through? I often wonder how people that do not know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior do it. This is one of the main reasons that I pray for people to come to know and serve Jesus because without Him, life is so very hard. I mean, many times it is hard for those of us who have a relationship with Jesus as our Lord, but the difference is that we are able to lean on Him in those hard times and receive grace and mercy to help us in our times of need. That difference, I can assure you, is a very profound and significant difference.

It is best demonstrated in the story of Jesus and His disciples on a boat in the midst of the storm. Jesus slept. He actually slept while the disciples panicked and screamed and declared their impending deaths. When they finally woke Him up for help, these were His words:

‘Where is your faith”?

Jesus said this because He had complete trust in His Heavenly Father, the One who controls every aspect of the universe that He created. Jesus trusted that His Father, who is God our Heavenly Father, would not let any harm come to Him. Jesus also knew who He was, the Son of God, and that God had given Him authority over His creation. In faith and authority, He spoke and the storm became calm. That is the same authority that the Lord Jesus has given to us as believers! Amazing! Please let that sink in. Read the verse over and over until you believe it and know who you are and what you possess, dear child of the Living God.

John 14:12 Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

I’m always blessed to know that even in the storm, the boat did not capsize, split in two or sink. No one was thrust overboard by the mighty storm. All around them was chaos, but their lives were unhurt. I’ve seen this in my life too, where everything is going crazy around me and I’m running around all panicked and acting crazy like the disciples in the boat. When by God’s grace the Holy Spirit nudges me to commune with God in prayer, He gently reminds me that He is with me and the storm will soon pass. By God’s grace, I have peace within the storm because I know my God would never forsake me. I can testify of this to others (and even to myself as I encourage myself in the Lord) as I urge them to trust Jesus because He has done it before. I have experienced God’s faithfulness. He has kept me before and because His nature is to be faithful, I trust that He will keep all that put their trust in Him and see them safely through every storm. His plans for you are good not evil. So the storm will not consume or destroy you but make you stronger in faith. It will be something that you can look back on and be encouraged in knowing that if God could bring you through that in the past, He will bring you through whatever else challenge you face in the future because He is faithful. He is the same, never changing God who always keeps His promises.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you” —this is the LORD’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Sometimes, while waiting on the Lord’s promises to you to be fulfilled, a storm or challenge may come your way that will cause you to doubt what God said and promised. You may doubt that you will ever make it through that trying time to see God’s promises fulfilled in your life. A similar thing happened to the disciples, and we can see this in the Gospels.

Mark 4:36-4 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Before they got into the boat, Jesus had told His disciples that they were going across to the other side of the lake with Him. He spoke it, they believed it and into the boat they went. However, when the storm raged and water started to come into the boat, all that Jesus had said and all that they had believed seemed to evaporate into thin air as they declared;

“Master, Master, we are perishing!” To which Jesus replied: Where is your faith? In other words, I told you we are going across to the other side of the lake. I did not say we will go halfway across then perish.

All this serves as an encouragement to believe Jesus and take Him as His word. Have faith in Jesus and trust that He will fulfill all His promises to you, spelled out in the Bible. If a storm happens to come your way, follow Jesus’ example and have peace. Not because of the storm, but in spite of the storm. Sometimes the storm is raging within us, sometimes it is raging all around us. As long as Jesus is in your boat by faith, you will have God’s peace.