July 5, 2022
Our family made a trip to the beach recently. As the kids and grandkids were swimming and body surfing in the ocean I took a break and sat on the beach under our pop-up canopy. I watched as a pretty intense storm was brewing out on the ocean. As I first started watching the storm it was small and seemed far away. The more that I watched it the closer and bigger the storm was becoming.
I selfishly prayed and asked God to send the storm in another direction so that our family could continue to enjoy the beach and not have to pack up and leave. In just a little bit the storm dissipated and the sun was shining brightly again. I watched as the rain disappeared and the clouds broke apart.
I am not saying that God broke up the storm just because I prayed and asked Him to do so. But it was amazing to watch the storm disappear right before my eyes. God cares about what troubles us and He does hear our prayers and in accordance with His perfect will He gives us the desires of our hearts.
I thought about what I had visualized – a literal storm breaking up and disappearing right before my eyes. I then thought about how many invisible storms people encounter in their lives. Storms of worry, fear, doubt, jealousy, envy, unforgiveness, and the list of storms goes on and on. These storms may not be visible like the rainstorm that I saw but they are still just as real and frightening.
When we pray about these invisible storms we are not always able to see the storms break apart and disappear but we can, through the eyes of faith, see that God IS at work taking care of these storms. We can trust Him to be at work even when we don’t see it. That is where our faith in Him and a look back at His track record of never failing us have to kick in.
God loves us and will not allow our storms to become so big that He can’t control or remove them. He is just waiting for us to call on Him to help us with the storms. So thank Him for the storms that He prevents or redirects that we never know about. But also thank Him that He hears our prayers and takes care of our storms when we ask Him to.
In love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs