In the Middle of the Storm

A storm is the opposite of peace. In our life, we often lose peace, especially in modern days. Sometimes real storms come to our lives and take all our peace, other times fears and anxiety fill our hearts even though there are no obvious reasons for that. It's really difficult to live in this state of mind, but what can we do with it? How can we overcome storms in our lives?

There are plenty of good examples in the Bible, one of them is mentioned in Psalm 34. David says, "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth". We might say these words often when everything is great and "our soul sings". But at the very beginning of this Psalm, we can find the historical context: "when he changed his behavior before Abimelech so that he drove him out, and he went away". This does not sound like the most successful and most pleasant season in the life of the psalmist, and still, there's praise on His lips! Other Bible characters such as Job, or Jonah, or even Jesus himself were worshipping and praising God's name even in their hardest seasons.

David says, "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth".

God is worthy of praise even when we can't see it, even when we don't feel like it. In difficult circumstances, we often focus on the problem so we can't see the big picture of God's plan. We might not notice the blessing that our Father continues to show in our lives, we might not understand the lessons that He teaches to us through these circumstances, we might forget about Jesus's victory on the cross and the salvation that it brought to us. That is why sometimes we need to take a pause and remember how good is God and tell Him about it!

Also, even though our worship usually focuses on God it still affects and changes us. David writes that "those who look at him are radiant". Worship changes our view of the situation, God's presence fills our hearts with peace and calms down the storm in our hearts even though the circumstances don't change. And I can confidently prove this with my own experience!

One more verse from this psalm: "The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved out of all his troubles".

So what should we do when there's no peace in our hearts? My response is simple: "I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm!"