Monday, February 1, 2016
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I've been in three hurricanes, but always on land. I can't imagine what it would be like to face it out on the water.
The crew of the container ship El Faro were on pace to be well ahead of Hurricane Joaquin, until they suddenly found themselves with no propulsion system directly in the path of a Category 4 Hurricane: fifty-foot waves, 140-mile-an-hour winds, zero visibility. The crew's families asked for people to pray for them and for their missing loved ones.
A Coast Guard officer said, "No matter how big the ship is, when you're disabled and you're at sea, and you're in the middle of a storm, the size and strength of that storm is just enough to overcome just about anything."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Storm the Ship Can't Handle."
I've never been in a ship in a storm. But in a more personal way, I kind of get what he's saying. Because storms - the physical and emotional kind - are part of everyone's story. I've felt the blows of medical crises that threatened the lives of people I cherish. I've experienced the pain of someone I love being here one day, and then suddenly gone. I've had trust betrayed. And there are the consequences of choices that I made and I wish I could have back.
And, like most people, I want to think I'm smart enough and strong enough to navigate the brutal winds and the surging waves. But, truth be told, it's like the Coast Guard captain said, "Sometimes the size and strength of that storm is just enough to overcome just about anything." And that's when people go under. Marriages break apart. Panic drives us to choices that will even sink us more. Fear, despair, and desperation take us down.
I'd like to think I'm pretty strong emotionally, but not strong enough to hold things together when I'm blindsided by a really brutal storm. But, thank God, I belong to Someone who is.
When Jesus was here, the team He built included some seasoned fishermen who had weathered many a storm, until the night that all their experience and strength wasn't enough to keep their boat from starting to go under. That's when Captain Jesus stepped to the stern, raised His hand and shouted a command, "Peace! Be still!" The Bible says, "The wind died down and it was completely calm." Because whatever storm is bigger than we are, Jesus is bigger than it is. After all, He had the power to walk out of His grave three days after He died on a cross to pay for our sin.
Jesus hasn't always stopped the storm around me. But He's calmed the storm inside me, beginning with the turbulence in my soul from battling with God for the control of my life. But, thanks to Jesus' life-giving love, I have, as it says in our word for today from the Word of God in Romans 5:1, "...peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." That peace is my unshakeable anchor and that anchor has always held. The storm we can't handle finally confronts us with a truth we've never wanted to face. We were never meant to be at the helm in the first place.
This may be the day when you finally surrender your heart and life and the control of your life to the One who gave it to you in the first place. The Bible says, "You were created by Him and for Him." Jesus had to die on a cross to pay for our rebellion against God. But today He's ready to bring you home into that relationship you were made for. And that peace with God that comes through Jesus; you can go to sleep with that in your heart tonight and every night for the rest of your life.
There's some wonderful information I'd love to give you at our website so you can be sure you've begun this relationship with the only One who can rescue you from your sin. I want to invite you to go to ANewStory.com. Will you remember that and check it out?
Maybe the storm that you've been in has been for an ultimately eternal purpose. Because for many of us, the storm that almost sank us was the storm that finally blew us Home.