There’s a lot going on right now. It’s like a storm has been brewing and now is thrashing down on the ship that is my family. There is a mixture of emotion. Some are exhilarated, some worried, some frantically attempting to steady the ship, some hypertensive, some reflective, some mourning and some afraid all is lost.
Storms (in nature) and in our lives shake everything. What is not fastened down (and built upon) is often shook loose and lost or destroyed. Many see storms as trials to be endured – and this can often be true - but I like to see storms as the power to make sweeping changes. So often we can invest time and energy in ‘beautifying’ mess or rotten structures in the attempt to kid ourselves and others that all is ‘GREAT’. But the refiner’s fire will not leave anything untouched that is not holy. It will burn up the chaff, and destroy that which we have attempted to make holy in our lives, that should not be. It reduces the idols we have placed in our lives to ash.
But storms can be painful. When our emotions are attached to anything but God, when we invest in building OUR lives instead of building HIS KINGDOM the loss can be devastating. Even when we love and build correctly, it is very difficult to be truly ‘content’ when much of what you know is ripped away. It is easy to ask ‘how can this be the action of a loving God?’ Yet, we must remember that EVERYTHING is His. He gives and He takes away. (Job 1:21) It’s all His, how often we forget.
Some people seem to experience more storms than others. – Some people seem to weather storms better than others. I am not able to tell why. I know that there were seasons in my life that were very stormy, and I know that as I grew older and grew in maturity there were less. – but they haven’t disappeared. This current storm is a bigger one for some in my family than it is for me, but maybe that’s just because I’ve been through a storm like this before and ‘survived’?
Whatever the reasons, my job as head of my household is to focus everyone’s attention on Christ the Rock, who, rather than being the one thing you want to avoid in a storm when you’re in a ship, is the very thing we need to lash our family too. My job is to help each one of us to tether to Christ, sink our anchor deep into the rock so we cannot move. When the storm is over, my job is to arrange to rebuild holy buildings after shoring up foundations, providing Nehemiah-like leadership, building with one hand and defending with the other whilst the walls are rebuilt.
Storms have lasting effects. What was there is gone, and even if it is rebuilt exactly as before, it is still a different structure with different materials. The foundations have proved (or not proved!) to be strong, and one might be able to predict the likelihood of what will stand in the next storm. If anything then storms encourage us to build right. To speak life and strength to each other, to remind each other to work with the master builder to craft pure gold in our lives which cannot be destroyed by fire or storms, and to lay up our treasure in heaven which cannot be eaten by moth or decay. It encourages us to keep our eyes on God, His Kingdom, and our place with him in heaven. It urges us to remember that everything here is temporary and easily lost.
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