... but Sometimes He Lets the Storm Rage and Calms His Child Instead

In the last post, we took a look at Jesus calming the storm, but we were never promised that He would calm every storm. Certainly there are times when our personal struggles have to be endured. We lose loved ones, people get divorced, crimes are committed against the innocent, and the list goes on.

John 14:26 and 27 says, "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

In one of the last conversations that Jesus has with His disciples, He doesn't promise that they'll have an easy go of it. He doesn't say that their lives will be made comfortable because the work they do is for the Lord. In fact, many of the disciples will suffer and die painful deaths Rather than promise them the comfort of the here and now, He tells them that He doesn't work the way the world does.

What about that last line though? Why does He tell them not to be troubled or afraid? I think that it's because He knows there are things coming that a normal person would be troubled or afraid of. In one sense, there's a fear of Him not being there. He did calm the storm, He did feed the 5000, but now they will have to move forward in faith without the instant reminder of who He is when doubt creeps in. On the other side of the coin, He knows that they are going to face increasingly hostile and violent opposition.

To deal with all of what is coming, He doesn't leave them with a pile of money, maps with secret passageways to safety, or a list of people who they can trust to help them. He leaves them the Spirit. God as a human is going back to Heaven, but they are not being left alone, they now being filled in their own hearts with God Himself. He is leaving them with Himself in a new form; a form that will remind them of the promises and the hope of an eternity with Him, a form that will strengthen them for the trials and give them peace in the midst of the storm. This is the very same Spirit that lives in us and offers the same peace, strength, and hope.

So yes, sometimes God does calm the storm, but sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child instead. Next time you can't find God in your struggle, look at yourself instead of the circumstance - how is He calming and strengthening you to be able to push forward through it? Who has He put in the boat with you to remind you of His promises?

Jesus Calms the Storm...

In Mark 4:35 - 41, we read one of Jesus' more famous miracles...

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 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?”

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

I love the what is illustrated here - the human nature to doubt in the disciples and the awesome power over even the storm in Jesus. Although Christ was sinless, I can imagine what would have gone through my head in His place. "Guys, have I ever failed to protect you before?" Or maybe, "Come on guys, I'm the Son of God Himself, what makes you think anything can happen to this boat while I'm on it?" Really though, He would have been fully able to remind them in any way He saw fit. Rather than quoting Scripture and reminding them of God's promises, He chose to show them who He was with proof of His power. 

This wouldn't be the last time the disciples had trust issues, either. There were other times when Jesus chose to prove who He was, His goodness, and His faithfulness throughout His ministry. He could have just reminded them each time, "Remember the storm, guys?" Time and time again he chooses to show His power and prove His love rather than just talk about it. 

Likewise, we (myself definitely included!) go through periods of doubt. Maybe we pray for something that doesn't happen as fast as we'd like or we're in a circumstance we think that God should save us from. We lose sight of who He is and what the Bible tells us about Him and we focus on our own fears and insecurities instead. Rather than getting an impatient reminder of what He's done in the past, He steps in and shows us His love where we are. It's not always in the way we want or in a way that we might expect, but He is always faithful... this time in our doubt, and the next, and the next, and the next.

Circles: A Warning for Christians

To wrap up this conversation about our self-centered circle and God-centered circle, I would offer a brief warning to my Christian brothers and sisters from my own experience. We live in a culture of "Health and Wealth" when it comes to sharing the gospel. In a few cases, it's straight up the only part of the gospel that is shared - "Jesus can cure your illness, He'll make your life better, He will bless you financially when you give to His church" and so on.

Many of us share the entire truth of the gospel, but the way we act around those with no home church, aren't Christians or are young Christians displays a false aura of perfection. We only let our sin nature show when we forget that people are watching us. I remember this intro from DC Talk's "What if I Stumble":

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

There is an elder in my church that is also a dear friend, accountability partner, and counselor to me. He doesn't sound like an elder; he cusses when he's frustrated with the sin in his life, my life, or other's lives. When he was approached about this, his response blew me away - "If I think it, I'm going to say it. For me to suppress my anger and frustration with the [stuff] I see God's children going through is to put on this false mask that I am somehow sin-free. If people can't see the real me and only see good parts that I allow to be seen, I make Christianity look unattainable at best and hypocritical at worst. The unsaved must see that we struggle every day just like they do or we feed them something false."

I grew up in churches that had an unwritten expectation that anything more than the cursory sins everyone deals with shouldn't happen. So when those thoughts and feelings entered my mind, I suppressed them and never dealt with it. Leave sin alone long enough and it will spread like a cancer. If we create a culture that does not allow our brothers and sisters to come to us with anything knowing that they will be accepted in love, we are not loving the way Christ taught us to. The first step to creating a culture of acceptance is to use our own experiences and struggles to show people what Christianity really is... and what it isn't. 

Circles - Part 2

Okay, so now we (hopefully) understand that no one living on this earth has completely shaken that sinful nature. We recognize that our sin nature and the Spirit living in us are fighting against each other, which creates the struggle we feel between doing what we know is right and what we know is wrong when we are tempted.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. People that are "converted" go back to their old ways. Pastors cheat on their wives. "Good" people do terrible things. What happened in those situations? Were those people never really saved? Were they faking it? Truthfully, I don't know. Only God can see into our hearts completely. I can tell you that for me, I had a lot of head knowledge from growing up in the church and zero real relationship with Christ. So in my case, I'd say that I was good at pretending, but I really wasn't saved. Even though I am confident of my salvation now, is it possible that I could return to my past? Absolutely. 

Those two circles that merged in our last conversation are like two positive ends of a magnet - they repel each other. The Spirit works to displace the sin nature and vice versa. If you've ever played with magnets, then you know the only way to keep two positively charged ends together is to force them towards each other. Just like those magnets, we have to embrace the struggle that occurs when those two sides come together and even work to keep them together with an intentional pursuit of Christ. The only way the struggle ends is to allow one side to completely take over. 

For so many people, myself included, at some point they give up the struggle, weary from the fight, and allow sin to dominate. The alternative is to allow the Spirit to dominate us, which is ultimately what happens when a Christian dies and the sin nature is no longer present.  As we mature in our walk, we certainly allow the Spirit to take over more and more, but the sin nature is still there, even if it does become extremely small in comparison. For that reason, we can never, ever give up the fight. 

Isaiah 40:29 - 31 tells us "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

When you grow weary of fighting, and you will, remember to look to Christ for your strength. He has promised to renew that strength so that we may fight on in preparation for an eternity with our Savior. 

Circles - Part 1

There's this analogy used in Christian dialogue that considers your life like a circle. You're encouraged to consider a life without Christ - you are at the center of the circle. You do everything for reasons that benefit you. With Christ at the center though, you now do things motivated by and for Him. Here's a classic example (notice the chaos of the dots in the first compared to the order in the second).

No offense to my teachers and brothers out there, but this analogy is grossly unfair. It's a great cause for doubt and can be paralyzing under the right (well, wrong, really) circumstances. It gives the impression that there are only two possibilities - sinner or saved. People, like me, believe that if you've really been saved, you move into the God centered circle. But there's a problem. I still sin and I'm still selfish.Thinking like that leads to serious doubt for the young Christian.

The Christ-centered and self-centered circles merge

Reality for the Christian is more like this. Our circles overlap. There are times that our actions are still selfishly motivated and times that we are focused on what God would have us do. There are even times when we are motivated for the good of Christ's kingdom but our sinful nature leaks through anywway. We flit back and forth in different seasons of our lives, years, days, even hours. Galatians 5:17 says "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want."

See, the point is that on this side of Heaven, we are in constant struggle between the Spirit in us and our sinful nature. All of us are struggling every day. For some of us, our "Me" circle is bigger and we're motivated by that sin nature more than by God. For mature Christians, the "God" circle is bigger, but make no mistake, the sin nature is still present. So don't assume that because you give into sin or struggle against it means that you aren't really saved. The fact that the struggle exists is proof of the Spirit's presence in you.

Confronting My Attitude

As I struggle to put my life back together and learn how to rely on my Savior for help, I notice that my attitude has the tendency to change almost as frequently as the wind direction. Working in a kitchen is stressful for me with the constant pressure of delivering quality results as fast as possible and never seeming to be able to do enough to keep up or even feeling like I was doing a good enough job. For a perfectionist like me, it spiked my stress meter from the moment I walked in until the moment I walked out. No doubt about it, my attitude showed that stress as I portrayed an aura of "just leave me alone, stay out of my way, and let me get this done". When I suffered a setback in any area that I was really looking forward to, it made things even worse.

Recently, I had the opportunity to change jobs, and it's got a lot of potential for financial gain as well as great flexibility and diversity to keep it interesting. Suddenly, I was able to deal with the stress of work and handle it with a smile... even joy. Why in the world was I able to experience that happiness in the midst of the stress that caused me such misery just days earlier?

One word: hope.

Like a switch had been flipped, there was something beyond the current struggle to look forward to. I wasn't just going to be a cook anymore. My job would be something that I could be proud of. Hope does amazing things to a person's attitude. It fills us with the ability to overcome almost anything, yet so many of us live without any apparent hope in our lives. We also see the effects through the disappointment of hopes that fail to come to fruition. It can sour a person as much as hope realized can lift it. It's also possible to simply become numb and refuse to hope in anything to avoid the pain that disappointment brings.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future."

Sometimes the hope of eternal life with Christ seems impossibly far away, but what I love about this verse is that we are reminded that God has plans for us here as well, plans that give us hope. That hope leads to joy. We're all going to struggle, and that pain may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalms 30:5). All we need to do is admit that we can't do this on our own and remember to seek Him for peace and the hope of a bright future.

Suggestions on How to Deal with the Stress of Life

I cycle through the many varied emotions that come with a divorce and the struggle of hitting the reset button on life, and it's not always easy to hide how I feel. In fact, I do very little to attempt to suppress my emotions for fear that I may try to bury them deep enough that I never actually face the struggle and deal with them leading to a situation where I allow sin to fester in my heart again.

As such, I get a lot of advice from people that I am around, but it's always interesting to see what those that are not focused on Christ have to say. One person in particular reminds me constantly that marijuana and sex will solve all of my problems. Another suggests violence; going out and shooting guns or making explosions to get the stress out. Still others encourage me to go out and really hammer it in the pool, on the bike, or out for a run. Of course, there are always friends that are happy to have any excuse to go out and drink. I'll be honest, some of those suggestions sound tempting and there are plenty of people out there that will agree with them. But what will actually work for me? For you?

Philipians 4:6-7 tells us "6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The answer doesn't lie in anything of this world, the answer lies in a relationship with Christ. See, it's not about escaping the pain through drink or drug, it's not about the passion of romance, it's not about the best bike or fastest run splits, it's not about making things go "boom". It's about embracing the struggle and taking it in prayer to God who promises to bring you peace.

So next time you're like me, and things just aren't working out. Stop putting your own effort into it. Pray and tell Him anything and everything about it. Then watch Him bring you peace and give you the strength to persevere through the Spirit's work in you.