Message of the Week: God will calm the storm

We are familiar with the story of Jesus calming the storm. And we are familiar with God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind. But this Sunday these two come together and we have two different storms, but both need calming. In the first, the disciples were scared, scared of a storm that would capsize the boat and kill them all. They needed God, in the form of their Master, to not only calm the storm but also to calm their hearts. In the second story, it is actually God who needs calming down. "Don't question God, and he will not tear up creation and everything in it." Really, God, you need to calm down, just like the storm Jesus calms with just a word. Have peace in your heart.

My question for us today is "Where are we in this stormy life?" Are we the parental unit looking at what we have created and wondering "why don't they get it? This can be dangerous!" or are we the child wondering whether we're going to die today. It was fun until it started getting dangerous.

Job was a blameless man, upright in all his doings. He performed sacrifices not only for himself but for his children (just in case they weren't quite righteous enough.) He followed God through thick and thin. God's way of life was Job's way of life. The disciples of Jesus had given up home and work and had followed him wherever he had led the way. And they had planned to follow him to the end. But their planning hadn't included a watery grave. If they wanted that, they could have stayed at home and kept working as the fishermen they were.

We often consider ourselves pretty upright in the eyes of God, disciples of Christ to the best of our ability, and doing the best in our daily lives to follow the will of God. And yet we often get caught by whirlwinds and tempests not of our own making. We feel out of touch with God out in the stormy ocean and wonder if we will ever make it to shore. We try to do thing on our own and forget that God made the whirlwind, God is in the whirlwind, and God will calm the whirlwind that is our life.

Yet there is another side to this: calm seas do not make for skillful sailors. Sailors become skilled by plying their skills during the worst conditions. But only if they do not lose heart. The stress placed on them during storms and their work load hones their skills daily.

If our faith is not put under stress then we also do not grow as Christians. A little stress is a good thing. A submarine creaks and groans until it hits the correct stress level and becomes the underwater ship it was meant to be. We who profess to want to grow in God must bear some stress, sometimes more, sometimes less, and let it inform our growth in God. We must become the Christians God wants us to be.

Many fall away during times of stress, during those times of storm and during those times when we feel that we can endure God's whirlwind no longer. Endurance of the storm, endurance of the stress, this is what makes us stronger in our relationship with God. That is what brings us to the finish line of the journey, to the presence of God, to hear "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."