Storm Surge

So an angry girl named Sandy comes storming up the Eastern Seaboard - the largest Atlantic hurricane ever. Sort of like last year's Halloween snowstorm that dumped a crazy two feet of snow on Connecticut. Where I just happened to be. And Sandy's doing this year what "Snowy" did last year - make a whole lot of folks change their plans.

Planes aren't flying and trips aren't happening. Gazillions of "important" meetings and appointments have been cancelled. The Stock Exchange and the U. N. have bowed to Miss Sandy. She's even pushed Barack and Mitt off center stage - and cancelled potentially decisive campaign events in the final week of a nail-bitingly close election.

Yup, storms change your plans. Suddenly, you have no control over events. But then, do we ever have control over events? When you consider that God decides if we take our next breath, our fiercely defended "control" of our lives is really just the illusion of control.

The sheer power and uncontested authority of a major storm are really just intense reminders of a bedrock fact we tend to forget - God's in charge and we're not.

Job observed that it's God who "loads the clouds with moisture" and "scatters His lightning with them. At His direction they swirl around over the face of the whole earth to do whatever He commands them." Why? "So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor" (Job 37:7-12). God's God, we're not. Just ask Sandy.

Storms aren't random - whether they're meteorological ... medical ... marital. Or the hurricane of a broken relationship ... a broken dream ... a broken heart. "The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and the storm" (Nahum 1:3).

Here's what I know from the times "severe weather" has hit my life and the lives of people I love. You start asking important questions you'd never ask if it weren't for the storm - questions that make you stop and think about what's really important - and what really isn't. You face issues you might not otherwise face...and the storm pushes to the front some of the basics you've pushed to the edges.

Most importantly, the storm that's blowing you around can actually blow you Home. To the God of the storm. Because, sadly, we just keep doing what we want to do with our life until there's something we can't fix, we can't change, or we can't control.

So your storm may be your wake-up call. To change your plans. To take your clenched hands off the wheel and let the One who should have been driving all along take you where you were created to be.

John Newton, the author of "Amazing Grace," was a slave trader - until a violent storm hit his ship and he cried out to Jesus to save him from his sin. That's why he could say, "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see." It was the loss of my baby brother that brought my dad, mom, and me to see our need of Jesus. So many could testify that the worst thing that ever happened to them, turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to them. Because it drove them into the life-changing arms of Jesus.

Strangely, we often see better in a storm. Often, that's when we finally see that Man hanging on that cross - and realize the sin He was paying for was mine. Battered and confused, we finally open our needy soul to the Love we've been looking for all our lives. And we find in Jesus "an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19).

And the howling winds leave us, not lost, but found. Finally at peace. In the arms of the One who speaks "Peace, be still!" to the storm in your soul.