I use to live in Oklahoma and Texas. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in that part of the country, but it is known as “Tornado Alley” because it get’s its share of twisters touching down.  A few months before Deb and I moved to Seattle in 1979, there were ten that touched down in and around the Dallas area.  We were thrilled to be moving to an area that just had rain, snow and earthquakes.

Seriously, we all experience storms in our lives, and I’m not talking about lightening storms, twisters and blizzards.  I’m talking about those painful storms of life that some of you may feel like you’re in the midst of right now.  You may feel like the disciples felt when they were in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and the Scriptures says the storm was so bad that their boat was swamped.  The funny thing about that situation was that Jesus was also in the boat, but He was sound asleep.  He was exhausted from a full day of teaching. These fisherman get so panicked that they wake Him up and yell, “Don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”  Jesus gets up and rebukes the wind and waves and the storm ceases.

Let me share three things I’ve learned about storms:

1. Storms come even when Jesus is there.  Jesus is in the boat with the disciples and the boat is still swamped.  Just because we are followers of Christ does not mean that our lives are going to be storm free.  I wish that was the case, but that’s just not reality.  The winds are going to blow and the waves are going to crash and, like the disciples, we think Jesus is sleeping.  We need to remember that He doesn’t protect us from the storms, He protects us in the storms.  The Psalmist said, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear for You are with me.”  Even when He’s in the boat, the storms can come.
2. If Jesus is there, then put your trust in Him.  Mark Batterson, in his book “The Circle Maker”, talks about the fact that there are times when all we can do is say, “I trust You. I trust You.”  There are times when the storms make everything look so hopeless, but those are the times when all we can do is trust in Him.  I have found that when we get to that point, that’s when God takes over and miracles happen.
3. Trust Him to calm your storm at just the right time and in the right way.  We need to remember that His timing is perfect.  He is never late and never early.  In His perfect time, and in His perfect way, He says, “Peace, be still” and the storms cease.  The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee.”  That is a verse that we need to memorize and remember when we’re in the midst of it.