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| Just like the ship sailing in Acts 27, we can be caught in those storms without the option of fighting them off. So how do we survive these events? It’s a question plaguing many people in our world today. It’s the reason there are so many self-help books and psychologist-hosted television shows today. People do not want to get caught in a storm with no way out. They want to be prepared to handle the problem and then move on with their seemingly idyllic life. Nobody likes storms. Nobody likes being out of control. But, maybe the storm is just what we need. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (NIV Study Bible). The writer here tells us that the testing of our faith (AKA storms) develops perseverance, which must finish its work in us to make us complete. This means that those storms we try so hard to avoid are really the times when we are being drawn closer to God and becoming more spiritually mature in the meantime. Without those storms we would live pretty boring lives and would probably have a severe lack of knowledge about the things of life. Look back at the passage in Acts. Notice the stages the sailors went through in fighting off the storm. First they changed their sails so that the storm would drive them along. Then they tried to secure the lifeboat and lowered the sea anchor because they were afraid of running aground on sandbars. Next, after taking a brutal battering, they started throwing the ship’s tackle and cargo overboard. When the storm continued to rage on, they finally gave up all sense of being saved. And what happened next? Continued... |
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