See The Rain
By: Kristen L. McNulty
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"The trees are bending in the angry wind that blows
Those big black clouds look like they're going to explode
I made this boat for us to ride until the storm goes away
I'll give you three reasons why it's time to be afraid
One, I've never sailed before
Two, never navigated a storm
Three, I look so small compared to all of these waves."
See The Rain (Go Away)- Seven Places
Many days don't you feel like the character in this song? Caught in the middle of a stormy sea, you have no idea how to sail or navigate through the storm, yet something must be done before you go down with the ship.
The disciples faced this same situation over 2000 years ago. In the book of Luke, the story is told that one day Jesus asks his disciples to cross over to the other side of the lake. When they are safely on their way, Jesus decides it's time for a nap and off to sleep He goes. A storm starts brewing and soon the boat is about to be capsized. At that point, the disciple's frantically wake Jesus up and present the situation to Him. Jesus gets up, rebukes the storm and suddenly everything is okay.
Now I'm sure you've heard this story many times over with lessons with lessons to be learned such as "where is your faith during the storm?", but when reading it over one question stood out to me and that is why didn't the disciples wake Jesus up sooner? Instead of approaching Him as the storm began to brew, they waited until the last possible second to ask for His help. One may argue that they were busy, and that's a valid point, but I think the reason they didn't wake Jesus up sooner is because they were too busy trying to take care of the problem on their own. Maybe Peter was bailing out the boat, while Andrew was trying to rebuke the storm, and the rest were caught up in last minute efforts to save their ship. But they were all trying to do it on their own.
As much as I'd like to shake my head at the decisions that they made, I can see myself very clearly in this story because aren't we all like that? We get caught up in the storms of life and frantically we try to solve the problem on our own. Finally, when no options are left, we then humble ourselves and run to Jesus. Wouldn't life be a whole lot easier if we ran to Him as soon as the clouds turned gray instead of waiting for the fierce winds and heavy rains? It would be a lot easier, but the reason we don't do it is because it costs us something big- our pride and self-dependency.
I don't know about you, but I hate asking for help. I'd much rather be the problem solver than the responsibility to someone else, but this pride costs me a lot. A year ago I was in the hospital after surgery and I learned a lesson in what it's like to be almost completely dependent on someone else. Yet as much as I learned, I still wouldn't totally give in. In fact, I refused to call for a nurse unless there were absolutely no other options. I can remember one night where I wanted the head of the bed brought down so that I could go to sleep. The sensible thing to do would have been to call a nurse, let her crank down the bed, and then go back to sleep two minutes later, but no- that would have been too easy. Instead, I painfully pulled myself out of bed, spent five minutes turning the crank with my foot because I couldn't bend over and then struggled to get back into bed. Looking back now I can see what a complete moron I was, but with God I do this on a daily basis and I'm sure that many of you can relate.
How many times do we try and do things on our own instead of stepping aside and letting God do what He wants to? And we do all of this in the name of our pride and our unwillingness to let go of our self-dependency. After all, in order to ask for help, we have to admit we have a need, and admitting we have a need is a pretty vulnerable place to be in.
Yet that is the place that God calls all of us to be in, whether we are a young Christian or a weathered disciple. We all face storms in this life, but the solution to every storm for every person is the same: step aside and let God handle it. Maybe we will still ride the waves for a while or the boat may head in the opposite direction of what we thought, but if God's the one creating the solution I can promise you that in the end things will turn out the way they were intended to.
This devotional was aired as a part of the Making A Difference Christian Radio Show.