Weathering the Storm

There are three elements to every storm that must be evaluated to become people of resilience.

The predictability of a storm.

The preparation for a storm.

The purpose behind a storm.

Nothing induces fear or anxiety more than a situation over which we have no control. Living in Florida, I experience the threat of hurricanes yearly and have weathered some devastating ones. The thing about a storm is that it exposes our weaknesses. You spend time preparing and securing the most vulnerable parts of your house. You may even flee to secure the safety of your loved ones. There are many things you can do to protect yourself against the storm but at the end of the day the storm itself is out of your control.

Storms are powerful. Storms can cause damage.  Storms can change your life. A physical storm is much like the storms we experience in our lives. A divorce. A diagnosis. Finances. Infertility.  The list is endless.

Picture yourself as a tree for just a moment. If you are a tree that is properly rooted in the ground and a storm comes, you are shaken and there is loss but the tree stands, evidence of its deep roots.

One night I experienced a typical Florida thunderstorm. My husband and I heard a loud crack in the middle of the night and assumed a pool umbrella had fallen. We couldn't see in the dark of the night. To our surprise the next morning, a tree had fallen in our backyard. 

If a storm comes and a tree is not properly rooted, the storm exposes the vulnerability of the tree; a lack of roots in the soil to anchor the tree. Sometimes, after several storms or a particularly long storm, the ground becomes saturated which compromises the soil and leaves the tree vulnerable to falling. Once a tree is uprooted from the ground it soon begins to lose the vitality it once possessed. The bark begins to fall off of the tree. The limbs become fragile and break off. The tree begins to rot. Why? Because the tree has been cut off from its life source.

The overarching truth about the storms we experience in life is that they often bring pain, suffering, destruction, and loss. In order to withstand storms in our lives we need to be rooted. The storms of life will expose our deepest vulnerabilities. In other words … our roots are showing*. 

God does not cause every storm, but he is in control of every storm. In Mark chapter 4, we find the story of when Jesus calmed the storm.

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

I can sympathize with the disciples. How could Jesus be asleep at a time like this?! How can Jesus sleep in the middle of a storm? Because he is the only one who can control the storm. He might not have caused it, but he controls it. Even the wind and the waves obey him. 

Storms are inevitable. John 16:33 says “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” If you want to follow Jesus, you're going to experience pain. Not much incentive for recruiting people to the faith, I know. But it’s the truth. If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to be rooted in the only one who controls the storm, you will face trials in this life.

Pain is the most misunderstood experience of humanity. One of the most misused (and flat out false) statements I hear is “God will not give you more than you can handle.” First, I need to make clear that this statement is not in the bible. Secondly, it's utterly untrue. God absolutely does and will give you more than you can handle. If we could handle it all on our own, we would have no need for God. Pain drives us to rely on his strength and not our own. 

I have survived a few storms in my life that forced me to wrestle with the character of God. I was born with a birth defect on my spine that has been described by doctors and geneticists as a complete anomaly of science. Nerve bundles on my spine were damaged even before I was born. This caused only 5-10% muscle to form on the right side of my back and stunted my right arm from forming. My earliest memories of childhood involve chronic physical pain. Pain is something I live with every day.

That’s the physical pain. I know a thing or two about emotional pain, as well. My father was an alcoholic, manic depressive who was verbally, physically, and sexually abusive.

There’s a saying that goes, “You’re either in a trial, coming out of a trial, or about to go into a trial.” The trial is at hand. Therefore, the time to prepare for battle is not when you’re in it, but before it comes. The preparations we make before a storm can determine how well we endure the storm. How we respond to the storm reveals how much confidence we have in God. Moments like these are moments where your roots are truly exposed. You will either plant deeper roots or become saturated and vulnerable to falling.

Sometimes faith is a choice. Sometimes faith doesn’t come naturally, it’s an act of obedience. It is an act of obedience to choose God. “Amy, your roots are showing.” I am constantly reminded of the book of Job. It says that Job loses all of his children, he loses his wealth, he's afflicted by sores and boils all over his body and yet in all his suffering, Job never sinned. How we respond in the middle of the storm matters. How we respond when life is no longer comfortable matters. How we respond to hurt, injustice, grief, misfortune, betrayal, loss… matters. Why? Satan, the adversary, tells God, “But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” Honestly, Satan wasn’t entirely wrong about the human condition, but he was wrong about Job. It is easy to trust God when everything is comfortable. Instead this is how Job responded. “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job’s wife implores him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

I don't often hear people questioning or rejecting the blessings they are given. I rarely hear people say, “I wish God wouldn’t bless me with money” or “I wish God wouldn’t make me so pretty.” It amazes me that in the darkest hour of Job's life he responds with, “shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”

“Your roots are showing.”

I think it's important to note that we can grieve righteously. We can express our feelings, we can cry, we can question. Job does all of these things but he never curses God. He never loses faith that God is there. In fact all of his grief is expressed through conversations with God. The book of Job exposes the painful but important reality that God is not transactional. It was not Job's righteousness or trust in God that prevented his pain, rather it was his profound faith that produced it.

God himself chooses Job fully trusting that Job will walk through pain faithfully. God knows that suffering, endured faithfully, disarms his adversary most. 

Pain gets our attention.

All pain is not caused by God but all pain can be used by God. 

The Bible says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, Romans 8:28. That does not mean all things work out the way we want them to, rather God can use our pain to produce something good that only he can. Things don’t always work out, but God is indeed at work.

The hardest part about enduring a storm is trying to understand why we go through them in the first place. 

For 37 chapters Job is met with silence. He cries out to God, enduring trial after trial and God is SILENT. Then in chapter 38 the first verse reads:

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.

Do you have goosebumps? For the next four chapters God asks Job a series of questions meant to reveal his incredible power as the creator and sustainer of the universe. In chapter 42 Job replies to God, “I know that you can do all things, no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” It is interesting that God doesn’t offer an explanation for Job's suffering. Instead, God reveals his character and his power over the universe. God offers Job what he needs most, not answers but his presence. 

Faith cannot be predicated on answers or understanding. In order to have faith we must have a relationship with our creator. Our greatest protection from the storm is the very presence of God himself. How we respond to the storms of life is a direct reflection of our confidence in God. God uses our worst pain to do his best work. 

In case you're wondering how the story of Job ends, God restores his fortune, blesses him with double what he had lost, and Job lives to see the fourth generation of his family. Adversity, when overcome, produces perseverance, maturity, compassion, a desire to help others, a deeply rooted faith that only one who has weathered the storm can obtain. God uses pain to motivate us out of our comfortable lives, to be his hands and feet and to bring the same comfort he has given us in our times of trouble to other people. 

Charles Stanley was asked the day before he was up for election for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, if he thought he would win. He responded, “if I win I win, if I lose I win, because my responsibility is to obey God and leave the outcome to him.”

“Your roots are showing.”

We're always trying to get out of the storm. We're always trying to reach safety. But sometimes what we are going through is not something God wants to deliver us from, but something God wants to deliver us through. The growing happens in the waiting. When God doesn't deliver us immediately out of the storm we are forced to rely on him and walk with him through it. Being faithful doesn't mean you don't feel loss or grief or anger. it just means you trust God's purpose will prevail.

Jeremiah 17 says, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” What kind of tree do you want to be? Hey… “your roots are showing.”