Welcome to another day the Lord has made that we should rejoice and be glad in. (Psalms 118:24)

This week is a continuation of last Saturday’s power outage parallels. As I wrote just a few spiritual connections that the Holy Spirit gave me from our experience, He flooded my mind with lessons from storms. Accordingly, this week let’s see what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us.

Lesson number one is that everyone, including Jesus, goes through storms.

Today’s scripture, Matthew 8:18‭, ‬23‭-‬27 (NASB1995) says…
Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea… When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” He *said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Consider…
Sometimes we’re so enamored with the storm calming power of Jesus, that we overlook His soul calming presence. Today’s scripture, teaches us some overlooked points about Jesus’ presence in storms.

First, we see the omniscient Jesus tell His disciples to go the other side of the lake by boat. When we visited Israel and road a boat on the Sea of Galilee, where this particular storm happened, we were told by the tour guide that storms were very common on that body of water. This means, Jesus would have known He was most likely taking His disciples through a storm.

This reminds me of another dangerous situation Jesus deliberately took His disciples through. Remember, the woman at the well? Let’s go back to the lead up to the story. John 4:3‭-‬6 (AMP) tells us…
He left Judea and returned again to Galilee. Now He had to go through Samaria. So He arrived at a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the tract of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, tired as He was from His journey, sat down by the well. It was then about the sixth hour (noon).

Something else we learned on our trip last year was Samaria was a very dangerous region that Jews avoided. That’s important, because we read Jesus “had to go through Samaria”.

Lesson 1a today is, sometimes Jesus has to take us through some dangerous places to get us to His next blessing oasis.

This makes think we should embrace the storms we’re in, saying “why not” instead of “woe is” me. Which reminds me of a Tasha Page-Lockhart chorus…

So why not me?
I’m the perfect person to go through the storm
It won’t break me, it won’t kill me, I’ll move on
And then I’ll come out even better than before
And I’ll never see this place anymore
‘Cause my faith is gettin’ stronger every day
I’m removin’ everything that’s in my way
And the fact that I survived another day
Makes me say
Why not me?

Jesus will intentionally takes us through storms to strengthen our faith in Him.

Lesson 1b, if Jesus is taking us through the storm, it means He’s there too.

This makes me think of the three Hebrew Boys in the fiery furnace. From their famous story, Jesus wants us to know that whether He delivers us from our storm or not, He’s with us in the midst of it. (Daniel 3:24-30)

So in the midst of the storms you go through, remind yourself that Jesus is in the midst of it with you.

Our last sub point of today’s lesson, is that storms reveal our faith levels. Let’s compare the faith of the Hebrew Boys, who hadn’t seen Jesus and His disciples that walked with Him and saw tons of miracles that He performed. Notice the contrasting reactions to their storms…

• Daniel 3:16‭-‬18 (NLT) shows faith in that…Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”
• Whereas today’s scripture reveals fear when it said…they came to Him and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!”

Notice Jesus’ response to His disciples, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?”

That reminds me of the question Reverend James Cleveland asked, which is…
“Where is your faith in God”

As I continued to look at Jesus’ response to His disciples fear, I realized something that I never noticed before. Jesus asked the question and then showed the answer. Look at the subsequent sequence of Jesus’ response…
Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.

He showed the disciples, if you had enough faith, you would have told the storm to pass in my name, yourself.

Where’s your faith today, in the midst of your storm? Is it…

• Disciple level, Lord help me please faith
• Hebrew Boy level, regardless I’m good faith
• Or Jesus level, command the storm to go away faith

I wonder if we understand that being transformed into the image of Christ, includes being infused with the His confident and bold faith.

This confident and bold faith is illustrated in the following story I heard…

Pastor and author Tony Evans was in Columbia, South Carolina, to preach at a crusade being held in the University of South Carolina football stadium. Thousands had gathered for the evening session, but news reports indicated a serious thunderstorm was on the way. In fact, the storm was expected to hit at 7:00 pm—the exact time the meeting was scheduled to start.

As the sky grew darker and darker, the threat of cancellation was a valid possibility. A group of preachers and other church leaders decided to gather for a prayer meeting. Evans noted that all the preachers prayed what many would consider safe prayers—ones quite undemanding of God. Then, a woman named Linda spoke up, asking if she could pray. Linda’s prayer went something like this: “Lord, thousands have gathered to hear the Good News about your Son. It would be a shame on your name for us to have all these unbelievers go without the gospel when you control the weather, and you don’t stop it. In the name of Jesus Christ, address this storm!”

So ended the prayer meeting.

Everyone took their places under the dark, threatening sky. The leader of the crusade told the people, “We’ll go as long as we can.” Umbrellas sprouted up among the crowd. A man sitting next to Linda opened his umbrella and offered to shield her as well. Linda refused.

Evans says he and his wife watched as the rain clouds came up to the stadium and then split in two. The storm rained on both sides of the stadium and came back together on the other side. All of those gathered for the crusade stayed dry.

As Evans points out: “How did Linda get what the preachers didn’t? She had the boldness, the shameless audacity, to ask.”

Today’s lesson is that Jesus is taking us through, which means He’s with us in, and has given us power to command the storm to go away.

Storms aren’t meant to leave us powerless, instead they’re intended to help us pass our ‘faith in God’ tests.

Learn to level up your faith in Jesus, while riding through the storm with Him as the Captain of your soul.

Today’s song is…
Through The Storm

Blessings 4HG (1 Corinthians 10:31)