Trust in the Storm

The rain has been gently washing the earth today.  There are some places where the wind has released its fury creating fear in those who wait and watch and hope.  The Creation is a part of the created order which always seems to be in process.  It is never static.  It is mostly constant, but always full of the unpredictable.  Even now in the time it has taken to write these few lines, the gentle rain has turned into a furious blowing threatening torrent.  What is going on outside appears like a prototype of the way life unfolds before us.

There are times when we move along in ease and comfort and then suddenly there comes something with an uncontrollable power which threatens the security in which we have allowed ourselves to live.  As one who has preached for a life time and heard more than a few sermons, there is one which has always been remembered from the mid '70's.  "Life is fragile,"  the preacher said enough times and with enough force to stick permanently in this memory I have carried with me all these years.  It is an obvious truth understood by anyone whose world has been unexpectedly shaken to the core, but one also mostly ignored as we rush along thinking that we are the one in charge of what we know as our life.    

There is really only One who is in charge and it is not anyone of us.  When the last remnant of the storm has blown away, those of us who are still standing know that we do so by the grace of God and not because we have built stronger and better security systems.  There was nothing I could do a few moments ago when the gentle rain became a blowng storm, but trust in the God of Creation to bring me through this storm to tomorrow's sunrise, or to bring me into the room where the Light shines bright.  Those who trust in Christ have learned to live inside the truth of that Word of the Apostle Paul, "If we live , we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's"  (Romans 14:8)