Weathering The Storm

Last night there was a terrible storm…

Wind swirling leaf and branch aloft… hard rain beating window glass… and visions of Texas-Oklahoma tornado’s dropping down from the churning heavens clouded my vision. Bustling about the kitchen, I threw this and that in the pot fearing the wind would knock out the power and I would be unprepared, vulnerable, in need… or so I imagined… fear, gut-gnawing fear took control and accelerated the already frenzied pace.

This morning after the storm had passed, I thought… there are times in which we live life running here and there making plans… getting prepared … throwing this and that in our pot-life, great with fear… fear of the unknown… fear of the dark… fear of being uncomfortable… vulnerable. God does not want this manner of life for us.

On Sunday, our pastor talked about this…Christ raised us… resurrected, lifted us up from the old way… making us alive in him so that we might walk in newness of life. “Walk by new rules, towards new ends, from new principles. Make a new choice of the way. Choose new paths to walk in, new leaders to walk after, new companions to walk with. Old things should pass away, and all things become new. We are, what we were not… do, what we did not” (Henry). It is being “alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).

To awaken to God is this; “to converse with God, to have a regard to him, a delight in him, a concern for him, the soul upon all occasions carried out towards him as towards an agreeable object; this is to be alive to God. The love of God reigning in the heart is the life of the soul towards God. Anima est ubi amat, non ubi animat – The soul is where it loves, rather than where it lives.

It is to have the affections and desires alive towards God. Or, living (our life in the flesh) unto God, to his honor and glory as our end, by his word and will as our rule – in all our ways to acknowledge him, and to have our eyes ever towards him” (Henry).

To awaken to God, “is to yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, Romans 6:13. The very life and being of holiness lie in the dedication of ourselves to the Lord, giving our own selves to the Lord first, (2 Corinthians 8:5)… [and] yielding ourselves as those that are alive… as a living sacrifice,” (Romans 12:1).

Today as you watch the storm clouds pass over and around you, walk in newness and serving as one upon the alter.

Feel the cool breeze of God touch your face… feel him awaken your soul… a refreshing of the old, making you new and alive for and to him… living ever and only, yielded still.