Storm

There is something about watching a storm that can be thrilling. I love to see a good thunderstorm, and there is a part of me that would love to go out to the mid-west one spring and be a stormchaser for a week just to see a tornado. We have a screened porch on the back side of our house and when a thunderstorm is rolling through I will sometimes slip out onto the porch and watch the lightening flash and listen the the thunder as it rolls across the land. There really is no good explanation as to why I enjoy this other than to say it stimulates my senses and makes me keenly aware of the power of God. I will usually stay out on the porch until the storm makes me uncomfortable by blowing rain in on me, or until I feel like I might be in some form of danger. At that point I seek the shelter that my home provides while I ride out the remainder of the storm.

This past Sunday found us in Kannapolis with Donna’s family as we celebrated Mother’s Day. As the afternoon sailed along I placed myself in front of Donna’s parents HDTV to enjoy the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. (HDTV makes watching golf fun, even if you are not particularly fond of golf.) Just when things were really heating up on the links, things were also starting to heat up in the atmosphere west of our home. At one point the thunderstorm warnings began to roll across the bottom of the screen. Finally, the channel I was watching cut from golf to full time coverage of this rather small, but powerful thunderstorm that was rolling across the viewing area. At first, I was just wanting them to get back to the tournament, but after a few minutes I realized that this little thunderstorm, which by this time was spawning tornadoes and dropping some rather large hail stones, was heading straight for our house. Needless to say, this shifted the focus of my attention.

Well, as it turned out, the storm did hit our house. According to a friend of mine we experienced a hail storm that lasted for about two minutes and dropped golf ball size hail on our roof with a few baseball size hail stones thrown in for good measure. When we returned home a few hours later there was about six inches of hail still piled up on our deck and great deal of hail still visible in our yard. I also noticed that there had been a good bit of gravel knocked off of the shingles of our roof, so I called the insurance company and they sent a guy out to look at it. I could tell that there was some damage, but I wasn’t prepared for his report. He said that our roof, designed to last 3o years, would have to be replaced. Now bear in mind that the house is only a year old.  To my untrained eye it didn’t look that bad, but he started pointing things out to me that I would not have noticed. Still, the damage was there whether I could see it or not.

When you think about it we all are kind of like my roof. We are damaged by the storms of life, even if the damage is not evident to those around us. The good news for my roof is that the insurance company will pay to have it replaced. The even better news for those of us who are followers of Christ is that we have the assurance that we will never have to face the storms of life alone.  Sometimes we think it would be nice if we never had to face those storms, but stop and think about all that we would be missing out, and how much we grow in our relationship with God when we face life’s storms. Would you really want to miss that? Now granted, sometimes we face storms of our own making, but even those do not catch God off guard. He knows everything we face, and he allows us to go through those storms so we can grow and get to know Him better. Look at the time in the gospels when Christ sends his disciples on across the Sea of Galilee while he went off to pray (Matthew 14:22-33). Do you think he was unaware of the storm they would face? I don’t. Still, as they faced the storm, he went to them. He was there for them in their time of need, same as he is here for us. Now I know facing storm can be scary, but remember what Jesus said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” This doesn’t mean that we are immune from the effects of the storm, or that we will not suffer any damage from the storms of life.  It means that Christ has already overcome anything I might have to face.  There is victory in following him.  I don’t know about you, but that lets me know that I really don’t have to be afraid, no matter what I might face along the path…