A View From A Pew: When the Storm Is Part of the Assignment

One of the great misunderstandings in the life of faith is the belief that if you serve the Lord, storms will somehow pass you by. That if you pray enough, believe enough, and live right enough, life will remain calm and the waters will stay smooth. But the Bible teaches us something very different. Sometimes you don’t get in trouble in spite of serving the Lord. Sometimes you get in trouble because you are serving the Lord.

The disciples found that out firsthand. The scripture says they got into the boat because Jesus told them to. They were not being rebellious. They were not acting foolishly. They were doing exactly what the Lord had instructed them to do. Yet somewhere between obedience and the other side of the lake, a storm showed up.

And that alone ought to free somebody today. Because the storm in your life is not always proof that you’re outside of God’s will. Sometimes the storm is evidence that you are right where God told you to be.

You see, not every storm has the same purpose. Some storms are storms of correction. Those storms show up when we have drifted from God’s path. When we ignore His voice, when we allow pride, ego, or disobedience to lead us in the wrong direction. In those moments, God allows a storm—not to destroy us, but to redirect us. Not to hurt us, but to help us find our way back into alignment with His will.

But there are other storms that come for an entirely different reason. They are not storms of correction. They are storms of perfection.

These storms come not because we did something wrong, but because we did something right. They come because God is shaping us. He is chiseling away the rough places in our character. He is carving something deeper in us. Storms have a way of producing a kind of faith that calm seas never could.

You see some of the good you are, is because of some of the bad you’ve been through. Think about that for a moment. Some of the patience you have now came from pain. Some of the wisdom you walk with now came from trouble.
Some of the faith you carry today was born in the middle of a storm you once thought would take you under.

Is there anybody who can testify that you are a better person now because of some storms you had to go through? You pray differently now. You trust God differently now. You see life differently now. The storm didn’t break you. The storm built you.

So the next time the winds begin to blow and the waves start rising in your life, don’t automatically assume something has gone wrong. Sometimes God is simply doing what only a storm can do. He’s shaping you. He’s strengthening you. He’s preparing you for something greater on the other side. And when the storm finally passes, you’ll realize something powerful: You didn’t just make it through the storm. You became someone because of it.