ICS Daily Devotions
The Perfect Storm
Mattew 6:25-33 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Many of us are self-confident which is excellent because God has given us wisdom and natural ability. We might be very knowledgeable, very thorough in all that we do and in our eyes everything in our life is under our control. We won’t know how vulnerable we are until a situation in life causes to realize our limitations. Hence, causing us to lose our peace or even lose control of our life.
Many exciting movies revolve around the powerful forces of nature. In the midst of these experiences with nature, it humbles the most experienced fishermen. And through these experiences, it can either bring out the best or the worst of that person. In “The Perfect Storm,” it talks about a group of fishermen who needed money because business wasn’t good so they had to bring in loads of fishes. Since the normal fishing ground didn’t bring in enough fishes, they chose to travel to the outermost area where few fishing boats ventured. True enough they managed to bring in all the big fishes onto the boat, but one problem arose while they were hauling in the fishes. The storm was building up around them, and it was not an ordinary storm. You would have seen the amount of damage done to a city or country during the typhoons that swept the land. Wind speed and torrential rains flooded the land, uprooted trees and almost submerged the whole town/city in water.
Imagine being caught out at sea in the midst of this “perfect storm,” being tossed up and down, things are being destroyed and water is flowing into the boat. In this situation, it doesn’t matter whether it is a state of the art vessel or a simple boat; all types of crafts caught in the storm is not a respecter of men. Communication is down, rescue helicopters cannot rescue you out of the water. You are caught in the eye of the storm and it is between you and nature. Being caught in this perfect storm, there’s no anchor that’s available on board that’s capable of stabilizing or preventing the boat from drifting away or capsizing.
Some of our life experience fits this example because it is totally beyond our control and there doesn’t seem to be a way out of the storm.
But praise be to God, when we face the “perfect storm’’ in life, there is an anchor that will hold us in place. This anchor will give us peace even though we are caught in the eye of the storm. THE ANCHOR IS THE WORD OF GOD, WHICH HELPS US TO ANCHOR OUR SOUL!
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.
1 John 4:18-19 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us.
Perfect love is built on the grace of God. Grace is defined as God’s unmerited favor meaning He loves us without us deserving it. There’s nothing we have done to make God love us more and there is nothing that we have not done or spoken to make God love us less. He loves us and it’s not based on our performance! It is purely God’s gift!
Once we have meditated on the grace of God, we know that God will never leave us nor forsake us. In fact, He is always waiting for us to run back to Him even if we have done something wrong, as illustrated in the story of the prodigal son. It’s a demonstration of God’s perfect love. Our mistake can only hurt us but it will never change God’s love for us.
While in the eye of the storm, keep our mind on the answer and not on the problem. When we do this, God promises us that His perfect love will cause us to sail through the eye of storm.
Sermon Series: Free From Anxiety
