The Storms of our Lives

God has an effective way of dealing with the false prophets in our lives. Let us look at the last part of Ezekiel's message again:

God said, "I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in My fury; and there shall be a flooding rain in My anger, and great hailstones in fury to consume it. So I will break down the wall you have plastered with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered; it will fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. Then you shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 13:13, 14, NKJV, emphasis added).

As we have seen in my previous message God is going to deal with the situation by causing storms in our lives. The purpose of the storm is to break down the walls of those who were deceived by the false prophecies in their lives. When they pick up their lives again they shall know the Lord. Notice we are talking about all people - Christian believers and unbelievers. A person can be born again with gifts of the Holy Spirit. He goes to Church and also active in serving the Lord as worthy of a Church leader. But he does not know the Lord in the real sense. A storm in his life can restore his relationship with the Lord. For the unbeliever a storm can help him to find God.

Some common storms of our lives

1. Sickness

This is certainly a real storm. Picture a Christian having a very stressful and demanding job, working and traveling all day and sometimes at night too. He has very little time for other things in life. He has no time for his family, no time for the Church, no time to pray and no time to read the Bible. Sickness will certainly slows him down and the Holy Spirit will minister to him and brings him closer to the Lord. If he is a non-Christian the storm of sickness can help him to find God. The work of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement (John 16:8).

2. Death of a loved one

The death of a loved one - a child, a parent, a husband or a wife can be a real storm.

3. Divorce

Divorce is not only a storm for the husband or the wife but can be a real storm for the whole family. It affects the children and the children's families as well.

4. Bankruptcies and other economical storms

Many countries are now in recession or on the verge of recession. There is a world shortage of fuel, flour, dairy products and other foodstuff. Farmers are having a difficult time because of severe weather conditions. The stock markets are swinging up and down. Many lost most of their wealth overnight.

5. Depression

Depression are commonly caused by wars, flood, drought, and other natural disasters and calamities. It can lead to other storms like mental and emotional storms. All these storm can in turn lead to sucidal desires.

6. Ministry storm

People in Christian ministries can have their own storms. Some of these storms are burnout, overworked, overstressed, heart disease, hypertension, perplexities and the lack of self-worth.

A true servant of God must be called by God to a particular area of ministry according to his God-given spiritual gifts. The Bible says to do the will of God is our strength. In other words, God gives strength and energy to those who do His Will. Therefore some of the storms in the life of a minister might not be necessary if he walks in the will of God.

After His encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well Jesus was asked by His disciples to eat something.

Jesus replied, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34, NKJV).

Jesus was saying that just like food that sustains a person and gives that person health and physical strength, God's will for a person also sustains that person and gives that person spiritual strenght to complete God's work.

A storm similar to Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7) could also come upon a person in Christian ministry.

A new creation in Christ

Let us consider a person comes to know the Lord Jesus through a storm of his life.

Paul said, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17, NKJV, emphasis added).

In other words, the moment a person comes to Christ, Christ by the Holy Spirit comes to live in him. It is a new beginning of a walk of faith (a process) for that new creature in Christ because the old things have passed away.

Notice that there is a difference between being in Christ and Christ being in you. When we come to Christ we have Christ in us and as we begin to grow and grow we come into Christ. The new creation does not happen a the snap of the fingers, but takes time to grow and bear fruit.

Paul said, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12, 13, emphasis added).

Salvation is a process and we have to make our own decision to grow to become the new creature that God desires. His work in us takes time. Repentance and going through the narrow gate (Matt. 7:13) are the decisions we have to make in our Christian walk.

God allows the Storms of our lives

The moment a person comes to Christ and acknowledges Him as his Saviour and Lord the Holy Spirit comes and lives in him. But this person is still living behind his wall. God give him light and he begins to see things he has never seen before. He begins to pray because there is a lot of fear in his life. Not a lot has happened and he begins to pray more and more. But then a storm begins to come. His wife is sick and this is affecting his family. He is praying even more and crying out to God to do something to help him and his wife. In fact he gets counselors, Pastor and the entire Chruch to help him and to pray with him and for him.

The storm comes on strongly to shake the wall. After a while he discovers his wife has cancer. Now he begins to fast and pray but he is very emotionally affected and he lacks energy to work. And because of this he loses his job.

What is happening? What is going on? Before he can think further another storm comes and his wife dies. The wall cannot stand this tremendous storm any more and the bricks are starting to come down all around him. His prayer partners begin to take off and run because they cannot hold this person's wall any more. In actual fact if they have discernment they should not be there in the first place because God does not want the bricks to fall on them.

Sometimes people in ministry can be in the the way of the Lord. They try to intervene when God is at work. We must find out what God is doing in this kind of storm. At this point we can see one of two things in the life of the person under this tremendous storm:

1. Angry with God

You can see this person coming out of the bricks with deep bruise and hurt and he begins to shake his fist at the face of God saying, "I am not going to trust You ever again. Look what you did to me. I came to you, I received Jesus and began to fast and pray. Now look I have no wife, no job and no friends. Yes I still go to Church but I will never trust You again". This person's heart begins to get hard.

2. Wholehearted submission to God

You might see another picture. Out from the bricks comes this person with his head down, with bended knees, with tears rolling down his eyes begins to supplicate before the Lord saying, "Lord it's over to you; I'm finished and there is no more that I can do. I surrender my entire life to you"!

God looks into this person's heart and begins to reach out to his life and He begins to pour His grace into his life and lifts him up. This person opens his eyes and looks around him and realizes the wall is no longer there. Fears and loneliness and perplexities are all gone. This person has come to an end of himself and at the beginning with God in a new way. He begins to see himself as a new creation in God!

Storms hit all of our lives

Let us search the Scriptures to see how many great men of God came out victorious of their storms.

God stepped aside and the storm came and buried Job's life. At the end Job saw the blessings of God many more times than before (Job 42:12. 13). Job repented and his relationship with God was completely restored (Job 42:2 - 6).

Look at Joseph, look at Jacob, look at Jeremiah and look at David and try to understand how God worked in their lives and brought them out of their storms.

God allows these storms so that you can see how God works through them. If God is to be God then these walls have to come down so that the person can learn how to love God and to love his neighbors as himself - The first two commandments.

If you do not learn from the storms then your life will become a storm! The things that happened in your life are being used by God to achieve His purpose in you.

Paul said, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28, NKJV).

Whether you understand or not, if you love God and you are called according to His purpose, then all things work together for good. As you seek God you will come to understand and come to see what He is doing in your life because He loves you. But if you don't learn the lesson you will go on having storms in that same area. God wants you to get close to Him to love Him and to enjoy Him so that more of His life can come through your life.

Don't be afraid to ask the questions that are in your heart - Why Lord? Job asked many questions and so were Habakkuk and many other men of God! They all found their answers by the revelation of God.

The real problem of the wall

We are living in the end time hours and the prophet Amos shows us what will happen to us when we keep on trusting the wall.

"It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and the bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and the serpent bit him" (Amos 5:19, emphasis added).

This man met a lion on his path and so he turned and ran to get away from it by taking another path. But on this other path he met a bear. Some of us have those kinds of days in our lives. Some of us meet two or three lions or bears in one day. Like this man we can get away from many lions and bears but when we are tired of running we get into our home and lean on the wall to rest. Out comes a serpent from the wall and bites us! We cannot get away from the serpent.

What does this mean? Amos was not talking about the danger of lions and bears. He was talking about the "serpent" in our heart. The wall where the serpent comes from is our heart. This is like a parable of our heart.

Jeremiah said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, serch the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings" (Jer. 17:8, 9).

What a clear description of the heart! The Lord tries your heart not by your statement of faith but by your ways. He comes into you home and watches you how you talk to your wife. He watches you as you blow your trumpet. He watches you how you speak critically and judgmentally of others. He looks at your ways and not your belief. The things that we do are things that are in our heart. What happens when you are under pressure? What you are under pressure is what you are and what you are in a crisis is who you are! It is who you are that matters most to God!