Presence in the Storm

By Grant Gaines

Have you ever had one of those door-to-door vacuum salesmen come to your house? If you have, you’ll remember the helpless feeling that hit your stomach like a ton of bricks as that salesmen poured a glass of crimson red soda all over your beautifully white carpet before you had a chance to even say “hello.”

The salesmen, now in complete control of the conversation, explained how normal cleaners can’t do anything to save your stained carpet that was once so sparkly clean. But lucky you! He just so happens to have the “only” cleaner on the market that can completely remove that stain.

At this point he’ll ask a rhetoric question along the lines of, “Would you like me to show you how powerful this cleaner is?”

“Of course I do! And it better work!” you would likely respond.

Thankfully, just as the salesman predicted, his cleaner fully removed that potentially harmful substance from your carpet and leaves it even cleaner than it was before.

Often times that’s exactly what we want and expect Jesus to do for us whenever we pray. We want Him to instantly change our situation to be even better than it was before. However, as we are about to see in John 6, that’s often not how God works.

This particular story in John 6 is one that is well known. It’s the story of Jesus walking on the water towards His disciples. As you’ll recall, it was a late night (or early morning…depending on how you look at it) for the disciples who were attempting to cross the Sea of Galilee. Out of nowhere, a violent storm appeared and began to cause as much havoc on their journey as an angry Tasmanian Devil.

The disciples were out of luck and nearly out of hope when through the mist they began to see a silhouette of a Person walking towards them…on the water. As you could imagine, seeing such a sight would cause a great dose of fear to pulse through your veins. And according to John 6:19 that’s exactly what happened to the disciples – they were greatly frightened.

But as the Figure got closer, the disciples’ fear shifted to relief as the formerly unknown ghostly Figure who was walking on the water comforted them by saying, “It is I; don’t be afraid” (John 6:20, NIV).

You know, I’ve probably heard that story a million times. I’ve heard it as a child, read it as an adult, and even been to the Sea of Galilee to envision what the disciples must have felt in that exact moment. However, because the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12), when I read this story the other day, the Lord showed me something that I’ve never seen before. Do you mind if I share what I learned with you?

Well, in order to do so, I actually want first to visit the story of the Lord speaking to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus 3. This again is another well-known story. Moses was tending his sheep when all of the sudden, the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush and called him to lead the people of Israel (who were at the time roughly 2 million people in all) out of captivity in Egypt. Moses’ response?

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11, NIV).

In this verse, Moses wasn’t having an Alzheimer’s moment by forgetting who he was. What he was really saying was, “How on earth am I, a lousy shepherd, supposed to convince the most powerful man in the world with the most powerful army in the world to simply let the Israelites go?” Moses saw how daunting of a task the Lord had laid upon him and was utterly distraught by his task. So what did the Lord say in response to this?

“I will be with you…” (Exodus 3:12, NIV).

The reason I tell you those two stories that you are probably extremely familiar with is I want to point out the similarities in how God responded to two completely different trials. The disciples were in the middle of a raging storm and were likely on the verge of sinking when Jesus walked out to them. Moses was about to go toe-to-toe with the most dominant nation in the known world at the time and command their leader to let God’s people go immediately.

Two storms, two frightened of men, and an eerily similar response from God – “I am with you, don’t be afraid.”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t downplay the size of the waves, the gust of the winds, nor the darkness of the night. Similarly, God never once told Moses that Pharaoh and the Egyptians aren’t all that powerful. Instead, in both instances, the Lord calmed their nerves by reminding His people that He is with them in this storm.

The reason I love that revelation so much is because we can all relate to it, can’t we? Often times when we pray and ask God for help during a difficult time, we don’t immediately see the storms in our lives calm down as quickly as we’d like them to. Often the cancer doesn’t go away by the time we say amen, the bills don’t disappear at the end of the month, and our relationships aren’t magically all better just because we brought our issues to the Father.

But while the storms of life may still rage all around us, here’s the hope that we can hold onto during those difficult times – just like the disciples in John 6 and just like Moses in Exodus 3, the Lord is with us. The storm may still be there, the waves may still be high, and the enemy may still be just as powerful, but the God of hope, peace, life, courage, and resolution is not far off in heaven occasionally observing our situation, He’s with us…in the storm, in the cancer, in the bills, and in the brokenness. He won’t always change our situation like we’d like Him to, but always He’s with us, He’s for us (Romans 8:31), and at this very moment He’s working all things for our good (Romans 8:28), including whatever storm you’re going through.

His presence in our storm is the anchor for our soul (Hebrews 6:19) that beckons us to not lose hope regardless of the circumstance because the One who is in control of the circumstances is within us.

Take hope, the Lord is with you.