Life-Storms Allow Us to Testify About Jesus & His Magnificent Love
It was not my norm, shopping at Wal-Mart, but that day, I needed to purchase a magnifying glass for VBS and some Command Strips, so there I was shopping in the baby department, purchasing new items for our grandson. Do you ever find yourself doing something that you never intended to do when you arose from your bed?
In the aisle between baby window shades and Carter outfits for 9-month-olds, I ran into someone I knew, someone who had just suffered a tornado of a storm in her life. Ironically, the night before in VBS, my astute fourth graders had just asked:
Why does God let storms come into our lives?
WOW!
Those questions came daily as we sat studying about God’s Magnificent Love for each of us. Then, as I found myself shopping in a store I rarely attended, the LORD placed in my path a real-life storm survivor! & not only that, but there beside this beautiful lady stood her daughter and her grandson. Immediately I recalled how this one’s daughter had just suffered through the storm of miscarriage.
GOD IS SO AMAZING IN HIS CARE!
GOD IS SO AMAZING IN HIS REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES THAT DEMONSTRATE HIS CARE!
The apostle Paul was born a Roman citizen and a Jew. He was educated in the Mosaic Law by the best instructors. Paul was a Pharisee, the highest religious leaders of the land, and so the day the LORD allowed Paul to suffer at the hands of the Jews and in the Roman prison,
GOD HAD PLACED HIS SERVANT—
- EXACTLY WHERE HE COULD TESTIFY &
- EXACTLY WHERE PAUL’S LIFE WOULD BE SPARED—
BECAUSE OF THE HERITAGE THE LORD HAD CREATED PAUL TO BE BORN INTO WHEN HE WAS BORN.
See the evidence of God’s Amazing Care of His child.
“As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander,
“May I say something to you?”
(The Acts of the Apostles 21: 37-40 & 22: 1-2 NASB)
And he said,
“Do you know Greek? Then you are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?”
But Paul said,
“I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city;
and I beg you, allow me to speak to the people.”
When he had given him permission,
Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand;
and when there was a great hush,
he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying,
“Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you.”
And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect,
they became even more quiet;
and he said,”
- The first “hush” came when Paul, bleeding and bruised from the Jewish mob, stood above them on the stairs.
- Then once they heard Paul speak, the second “hush” came, and the people were quiet and listening.
Isn’t it quite amazing how the LORD—
- Allows storms to come into our lives & then
- Provides opportunities for us to speak for HIM.
That’s what I learned on a day not so long ago after a tornado took this beautiful lady’s home, sparing her life and that of her husband’s, even while taking most of their life possessions.
That’s also what I recalled on a day not so long ago, while standing in the aisle at Wal-Mart and seeing her daughter who had just lost her unborn child in a miscarriage.
Why does God let storms come into our lives?
The VBS fourth-graders asked the question & the two women standing before me gave me the LORD’S answer.
“God did not send the storm to punish me, but He allowed it to happen.”
WOW!
Once the hush covered the crowd that day so long ago when the apostle Paul stood to speak, he offered the only defense he could—He shared his testimony. Paul spoke to the people about his heritage and about the road to Damascus, where he was walking when the LORD spoke to him. He told them how the LORD led him to become a missionary to the Gentiles.
Many years later (after that day on the stairs), Paul was imprisoned for his witness to the Gentiles, and while chained between two Roman guards, he wrote a letter to believers living in Philippi.
- Life-Storms May Come.
- Weather-Storms May Raze our Homes to the Ground.
Life may change in the blink of an eye, but still, God uses each of these Life-Storms for His Glory and our good. The apostle Paul said:
“May I say something to you?”
and I beg you, allow me to speak to the people.”
“But whatever things were gain to me,
(The Letter of Paul to the Philippians 3: 7-9 NASB)
those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
More than that,
I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
and may be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law,
but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,”
Life-Storms Allow Us to Testify About Jesus & His Magnificent Love!
We are given storms to walk through, but as seen in the aisle at Wal-Mart, we are NOT to dwell upon the “STORM” but on the LORD’S GOODNESS.
Then the apostle writes to the believers—
“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet;
(The Letter of Paul to the Philippians 3: 13-14 NASB)
but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”