By: Bishop Dr. Etta Mhoon-Walker, Ph.D., D. Div.
Saturday Devotion and Prayer. April 29, 2023
“Weathering the Storm Well”
“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” – (2 Corinthians 2:14)
With tear-soaked eyes, I said, “When God gets me through this, I want to be able to say that I believed He would, and not regret how much I worried.” Too many times I had regretfully said the latter to my mom after God had proved Himself faithful. Too often I had hung my head in shame, apologizing to God for not just believing Him and worrying instead of trusting Him. When was I going to learn my lesson?
Have you been there before? Maybe you are facing an unexpected move and you don’t know where your next home will be yet. Perhaps you have an upcoming deadline, and you aren’t sure if you are going to have adequate time to complete the assignment. Or do you have an unexpected expense and no plan for an increase in income? If you have been in one of these situations or something similar, then you know how easy it is to succumb to worry and doubt rather than remain hopeful. And you know how hard it is to think about praising God when all you can think about is your pain. But what would happen if we stopped taking the bait to spiral into hopelessness, and decided to use this as an opportunity to praise God and call others to follow Christ in His triumphal procession as it says in our key verse?
All too often, I am guilty of desiring and praying for a quick fix. I want to skirt around the problem to the solution. And sometimes God does answer our prayers with a quick solution, but if you have been following Jesus long, you know that often God doesn’t work on our timeline. Sometimes His answers are slower because He desires to do something inside us in the process.
I know it’s hard to surrender to the journey of sanctification. And sometimes it hurts to be shaped into the image of Christ. We don’t like it when God removes the things that bring us comfort and security. And we don’t like to see our sin exposed when He brings a trial our way. We aren’t fond of others seeing how we worry instead of trust. But what if that’s exactly the work God means to do in our hearts and lives with stormy seasons?
Maybe He wants to bring all that up so He can transform us into people who weather storms well by depending on Him and not our false senses of security and comfort! So, the next time a stormy season strikes let’s be people who praise God and remember we are following a triumphal procession. We can be confident this storm is ending in a victory that has been secured for us by Christ. Let’s claim His promises and peace during the storm. Let’s be the sweet aroma that spreads the knowledge of Him and victory everywhere this storm blows us, and let’s weather the storm well.
Heavenly Father,
thank You that You are in charge of the winds and waves. You know when stormy seasons roll into our lives, and You use these seasons to make us look more like You. God, forgive us when we resist this process in our lives because it hurts. Forgive us when we try to skip over the hard parts and only desire the solution to our problems rather than You.
Thank You for understanding our humanity because You experienced it firsthand, and still You displayed obedience to the Father on our behalf! God, I thank You that You willingly give us Your righteousness as our covering. I pray that we would turn to You and draw near to You in our pain. Lord, will You shorten the time it takes for us to run away from our false sources of security and return to You? Lord, thank You that even now You don’t give up on shaping us into people who look like You. Help us weather life’s storms well. In Your son Jesus’s name, I pray, Amen.
“Weathering the Storm Well”
“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” – (2 Corinthians 2:14)
With tear-soaked eyes, I said, “When God gets me through this, I want to be able to say that I believed He would, and not regret how much I worried.” Too many times I had regretfully said the latter to my mom after God had proved Himself faithful. Too often I had hung my head in shame, apologizing to God for not just believing Him and worrying instead of trusting Him. When was I going to learn my lesson?
Have you been there before? Maybe you are facing an unexpected move and you don’t know where your next home will be yet. Perhaps you have an upcoming deadline, and you aren’t sure if you are going to have adequate time to complete the assignment. Or do you have an unexpected expense and no plan for an increase in income? If you have been in one of these situations or something similar, then you know how easy it is to succumb to worry and doubt rather than remain hopeful. And you know how hard it is to think about praising God when all you can think about is your pain. But what would happen if we stopped taking the bait to spiral into hopelessness, and decided to use this as an opportunity to praise God and call others to follow Christ in His triumphal procession as it says in our key verse?
All too often, I am guilty of desiring and praying for a quick fix. I want to skirt around the problem to the solution. And sometimes God does answer our prayers with a quick solution, but if you have been following Jesus long, you know that often God doesn’t work on our timeline. Sometimes His answers are slower because He desires to do something inside us in the process.
I know it’s hard to surrender to the journey of sanctification. And sometimes it hurts to be shaped into the image of Christ. We don’t like it when God removes the things that bring us comfort and security. And we don’t like to see our sin exposed when He brings a trial our way. We aren’t fond of others seeing how we worry instead of trust. But what if that’s exactly the work God means to do in our hearts and lives with stormy seasons?
Maybe He wants to bring all that up so He can transform us into people who weather storms well by depending on Him and not our false senses of security and comfort! So, the next time a stormy season strikes let’s be people who praise God and remember we are following a triumphal procession. We can be confident this storm is ending in a victory that has been secured for us by Christ. Let’s claim His promises and peace during the storm. Let’s be the sweet aroma that spreads the knowledge of Him and victory everywhere this storm blows us, and let’s weather the storm well.
Heavenly Father,
thank You that You are in charge of the winds and waves. You know when stormy seasons roll into our lives, and You use these seasons to make us look more like You. God, forgive us when we resist this process in our lives because it hurts. Forgive us when we try to skip over the hard parts and only desire the solution to our problems rather than You.
Thank You for understanding our humanity because You experienced it firsthand, and still You displayed obedience to the Father on our behalf! God, I thank You that You willingly give us Your righteousness as our covering. I pray that we would turn to You and draw near to You in our pain. Lord, will You shorten the time it takes for us to run away from our false sources of security and return to You? Lord, thank You that even now You don’t give up on shaping us into people who look like You. Help us weather life’s storms well. In Your son Jesus’s name, I pray, Amen.
