Dr. Ray Pritchard Christian Blog and Commentary

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The Mount Hermon Dallas Conference--Day 3

  • Dr. Ray Pritchard
    Dr. Ray Pritchard is the president of Keep Believing Ministries, an Internet-based ministry serving Christians in 225 countries. He is the author of 29 books, including Stealth Attack, Fire and Rain,… More
  • Published Aug 04, 2004

This morning Professor Bill Lawrence preached on Stormology 101, from the story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4. He pointed that most of us struggle with an enormous need to be in control of life. "You aren't in control of anything that really matters." Your heart? It could stop at any moment. Your breath? Ditto. Your children? Are you kidding? Your mate? No way. When Jesus told the disciples to get into the boat, they expected a smooth ride to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes storms come simply because we are following Jesus. They aren't necessarily a sign that we are out of God's will. We can be doing everything God wants us to do, and the storms come anyway.

 

But when the waves are about to capsize the boat, it's easy to think that Jesus has forgotten about it. He may seem to be asleep when he ought to be taking care of us. In those moments of total confusion, our natural response is to "row, sail and bail." We think we can solve our problems by working hard, longer, spending more hours at the office, clamping down on those around us, getting up earlier, staying up later, but it never works. The storms of life come in part to teach us that we aren't in control and we were never in control. Most of us have to learn that lesson over and over again.


When Jesus was awakened, he simply said, "Put a muzzle on it!" and the wind and the waves immediately became calm. The disciples said to each other, "Who is this man?" Answer: He's God! When God finally shows up, the storms of life will come to an end. That won't always happen quickly, and it never happens on our timetable, but God does show eventually. This story teaches us that we'll never survive the storms of life on our own effort. Until we give up our pathetic efforts to control things, we'll flounder as the waves come crashing around us.

 

Mark 5:1 adds the final detail that "they came to the other side." But that's why they got in the boat in the first place--to go to the other side. The storm was an added "bonus" that made the journey exciting. Or if not exciting, at least unpredictable. Don't miss it. They got where they were going exactly when the Lord intended for them to get there. The storm didn't hinder God's agenda in the least, but it did teach the disciples that their agendas and God's weren't the same.

 

So where are you right now? All of us are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to enter a storm sooner or later. That's life. Remember that the storms of life aren't meant to destroy you. God uses storms to teach us that "He's God and We're Not." It's scary and incredibly freeing to be in the "no control" zone of life. And when the storm is finally over and we are safely on the other side, we will look back and say, "If it hadn't been for the Lord, we never would have made it."


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