My Anchor in Stormy Times

There is something magical about a storm. Something mystical about standing on a cliff-top to watch an Atlantic cyclone, lightning flashing, strong winds in my face, rain falling like a flood from the heavens. The waves whipped into a white frenzy, smashing against the rocks of the Cornish coastline below. I always thought God was in such a storm. There is a sense of awe at the powers revealed there. There is a feel for what it might be like to stand in the presence of the Almighty Himself. I remember singing out my lungs in praise of my Holy LORD standing in the middle of such a storm, drenched to the skin, lightning flashing all around but with a deep sense of His awesome presence.

There is something terrifying about a storm on the ocean, especially when you are the sailor caught in one, in a tiny boat, being driven towards the rocks. It is truly frightening when you have to make that extra tack back out to sea, just one more time, to avoid being smashed against the rocks of the shore. As you do, you are rolled by the waves, coming from the boat's side, literally jumping the waves. Drenched to the skin by the cold salty spray and praying for the moment when you can turn and run towards the shore. Storms are no joke for sailors, and so the prayer of a sailor is more often for safe harbor and for a good anchorage to ride out the storm. It is a prayer for God to hold us in His hands when the going gets rough and the waves loom like mountains over fragile barks.

Many people have described this year in language similar to describing a storm. This is a storm that has claimed lives, ruined people, and left people asking God questions. It is a storm that claimed a president who had looked a dead certainty for victory, now not. It is a storm that has claimed almost 2 million lives thus far. It is a storm that claimed my uncle but spared my nephew. In another trial, that my life passed through, I had a picture of being surrounded by an army of demons. I felt like bait for the forces of darkness. However, I saw an angel standing between me and those who would destroy me, his sword whirling, as he decimated the onward assault of the enemy, in my defense and in accordance with God's plan for their destruction. This year has felt something like that also. Standing on a clifftop watching the storm rage around me, yet confident in that angel, decimating whatever the dark could throw my way. Others have been on a tiny sailboat braving the Atlantic rollers, some have been smashed on the rocks below me, some are lost out to sea, but not me, or my family, not this time.

So, what does it mean to trust God when the world is shaking all around you? When all you thought solid is broken and falling away, where a world of falsity is swept away in a flood of tears and a hurricane of events. It means to stand on something solid, on the rocks on which a Lighthouse finds its foundation, on the top of a cliff far above the waves below. It means to shine your light as far and wide as you can so that others also might find the safety of the shore, and it means to be at peace. No storm can throw you off God's foundation and there is no demon that can get past the angels that guard you, not this time, not this place. The rock we have been given is Jesus, and we know Him, and we stand on His foundation and are rooted in Him when we obey His commands, as the Holy Scriptures say.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matt. 7:24-27


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My/Our Anchor in Times of the Storm