Sailor, Take Warning....

I stand here and watch these ominous clouds rise up on the horizon. Chest tightening, breath catching. This is going to be a big one. 

Those clouds gather, all black and fierce. And I feel so small.  

Even though I don't really, honestly fear this kind of weather. There's another kind of tempest that make my heart tremble at times. The meteorologists name the hurricanes as they form off the coast every year and if I could name this storm I would simply call it, Life. And eventually, we all have to weather it in some form or another. 

Sometime's it rises up, all howling and cold, and we can be left battered down and falling apart by it. 

Although I haven't had what I would call a hard life, I have experienced 'storms'. I and the ones I love have been (and are going through) difficult things. And sometimes my soul mourns from just seeing all the pain that's in this world....

My heart has ached with the mother who’s been told that the life inside her won’t live more than an hour outside the safety of her womb.

My spirit has flinched under the painful reality of hearing about a gunman in a theatre tearing through skin and lives with his weapons and hate.

I carry the burden of a loved one wandering lost and bitter and looking for fulfillment outside of Jesus.

It builds inside me, these clouds of restlessness. It broods on the horizon until suddenly it all comes crashing down.

There has to be more than all this. 

So often we question, ‘Why God?’. We scream and pound the table for Him to change the situation, to take away the hurting. The pain is too much and, in our minds, we don’t deserve it.

We forget who we are and where we live.

Because of our rejection of God, our place of dwelling is a world cursed, fallen from grace, and full of darkness. We’re all born here bleeding and torn open. We enter the world wounded with a serious, deadly infection of sin.

Our natural instinct is to hide and lick the wound away from the Light. It’s all too painful for anyone to touch, much less start washing the infection away. What are we to do? We’ll die without healing.

In despair, we fall under this crushing reality.

Have we also forgotten who God is?

Like a distant star blazing in the thick blackness of night, He shines out.

And just like we don’t realize how large and hot those stars in space are when we look up at night. We stand here, earth-bound and sin-blind, and can’t even begin to comprehend the vastness of this Savior.

At times, we feel as though He is too far away from our pain, just a pinpoint of white on this nearly infinite canvas of black. Sometime is feels like the storm is too big, too strong. We feel like the light is being swallowed up by the dark. And that Jesus is watching but from very far away.

But He is here, among us.

He knows, better than any one of us, how sin destroys. He allowed it to ravage His own body so He could consume the punishment and become our Healing.

He seeks us out with love and holds us tight, even when we struggle against Him. He knows what’s best and wants to cure us of this sin infection even if it hurts us to do so.

So, out of great love, He allows hard things, painful things, and even unbearable things to enter our lives. Why? To wipe out the infection, to show us that nothing really matters except knowing Him. And to display to this fallen world the infinite power and love of Jesus. 

 And it’s not only the cleansing out of sin that causes hardship in our lives. I believe, at times, some of it comes from simply living in a cursed world. And I believe that Jesus looks on this planet and weeps. He’s heart aches to bring His children home, away from the curse and the weight, and let them rest with Him. 

I am a discontent person. It’s not a holy thing. It’s rooted in selfishness. I want things to be better, easier for me.

Forgive me, Father, for this. Help me to see that no matter how ‘right’ things seem in my eyes that I will never be satisfied in this world. Only in You is the safety and joy that I crave. Help me channel my discontentment with my circumstances into a restlessness for security in You only. Teach me to long for You, Jesus.

After all, it’s ok to feel homesick.

Those born anew in Christ do not belong here anymore. We wait, and groan, and have a firm hope in a new world. We labor here for joy in Christ there.

Yes, it hurts. And yes, even though we have been ultimately healed we still have to be daily washed and live in this place of suffering. But now we have hope that this is not all there is. One day we will go home.

And it’s not only in Heaven where we can be joyful and content. Even here, even in all this chaos, there can be found rest. There can be found hope, the Hope.

 Jesus.

Hebrews Chapter 10-32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.37 For,
Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;38 but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Hebrews Chapter 11-13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city,
Romans 5-13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 

So let us, the healed and washed clean by these God-storms, find strength in our Savior to bear His cross with Him.

And also, let us reflect His light onto the dying and cursed so they too will be saved from all this. To be separated from God forever would be a pain we cannot begin to fathom. How can we not share the redemption of Jesus?

Forgive me God for my apathetic approach to this reality.

So finally….

Be strong in Your God.

Be joyful in the hope of Christ.

Be bold in the proclamation of His message.

Be found safe and secure, always in Him.