A Day

Today is the day! The day to start to remove the barriers in your life as you try to trust the Lord. The day to exemplify His glory in everything you do. The day to be glad simply because He woke you up (and maybe even on time to get to work). A lot of people (including me) have this problem with seeing the storms in our lives and wondering "Why would God allow this to happen?" We think that because we go to church, or we pray, or we tithe, or we are good that everything should be okay. Why? The bible doesn't say that there is a formula to your relationship with the Lord - there is no clever addition or subtraction that you can see to weigh our struggles.

Joseph was beaten and sold by His brothers. Then enslaved for a crime he didn't commit. It was then that the Lord started to make Himself apparent to Joseph, and started using him.Why is it, when we have storms in our life, we start to ask, "Why would God allow this to happen?" What distinction do we have to say that this is not something important that is incredibly necessary for out spiritual growth?

In Mark 4, Jesus and the Apostles were out on the sea. All of a sudden a raging storm hit. Some of the men went and found Jesus asleep and woke Him up saying, "Jesus do you not care that we are going to die?" Jesus walked out of the room and onto the ship and rebuked the storm saying, "Peace! Be still!" And the storm stopped.

Why do we encounter storms and go straight to asking, "Do you not care that I am [dying, suffering, bleeding, in agony, in pain]?" Have we not learned that He will not take care of it? And why do we put ourselves at the center of the universe in our trials? Well, simply, we're human. We can't really help it. Even Jesus, even in this parable, fell to His human side. We see Him sleeping in a room as the storm rages on.

Through this we can see also, His faith in God. As the storm was raging - He was SLEEPING. Now, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. I can sleep through many things - even thunderstorms. But, I can't imagine being on the sea, in the midst of a turbulent storm - the ship being tossed this way and that way - and not waking up. That must be pretty powerful faith. Faith that I strive for.

After Jesus calmed the storm He looked at the and said, "Why were you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Wow. Deep, Jesus.

Do you not have any faith? Do we not have the faith to say that we are okay? I long for a day when a storm comes into my life and instead of asking, "Why would you allow this to happen, God?" I ask, "How are you going to use this storm in my life, God?"

Today is the day when I strive to allow my faith to go far beyond what is has in the past. To allow myself to see a storm in my life and wonder how God is going to use it, instead of wondering why God allowed it to happen. I long for the day when I can see problems in my life, and instead of feeling burdened by them, allow myself to feel happy knowing that God is using me in His plans. How great that must be.