Even now, as the wind rattles your windows and the rain beats hard against the glass, you know what it is to feel small in the grip of a great storm. You hear it howling and something in you tightens. You wonder about those in its path, about the waters rising in the low places. It is no small thing to stand in the middle of weather that does not ask your permission and wait for it to pass.
But let me say something to you that I have found true in every tempest. The wind that frightens you has a bit in its mouth, and the hand that holds the rein is your Father’s. Not a gust leaps out of its place, not a drop falls from the cloud, but He has appointed it. He who weighs the mountains in the scales measures also the force of the gale, and He does not forget to be tender. I do not ask you to pretend the storm is nothing, that would be foolish. I ask you to look through it to the One who rides upon the storm as a chariot. The disciples on Galilee cried out that they were perishing, and their fear was real enough, but Christ was in the boat all the while. The water that soaked their feet could not swallow them because He who made the sea had chosen to be there with them.
I think you have already done the best thing a trembling soul can do. You have prayed, and you have prayed in Jesus’ name. That is not a little thing. When a child runs to her father’s door in the dark and knocks, she does not need to explain herself at length. The father knows her knock, and his heart answers before his hand draws back the latch. You have cried, “Protection for all in the path,” and the ear that is never heavy with sleep has heard you. He does not require you to manage the wind yourself; He only asks you to trust the arm that commands it.
Perhaps it will help you to think of yourselves and those you love as being under a great canopy just now. Not a roof of tiles, which the storm might tear away, but the living shelter of God Himself. Picture it this way: a hen spreads her wings and the little brood beneath her knows nothing of the hawk above or the rain that pelts the field. They feel warmth, they feel the nearness of her heart, and they are still. So the Lord spreads His feathers over His own. The storm is real, it is raging out there, but the soul that has cowered down under the shadow of the Almighty is kept in a different climate altogether. The wind may scream, but it cannot reach the inner chamber where Christ speaks peace.
And notice this too: the East Wind is never permanent. It has its hour and its season, and then it spends itself and is gone. Many a saint, shivering in the blast, has thought the bitter air would last forever, but God has appointed a south wind to follow. The weather changes at His word, not ours, but His word is sure. Even if the storm should rage beyond what we can presently see, it is still held in the leash of a wisdom that has never yet failed His redeemed. He knows the way through the deep waters. The floods lifted up their voice in Noah’s day, but not one soul that was in the ark perished. The same waters that swept away a world only lifted the ark higher toward the heavens. So it is with those who trust in Christ: the very flood that terrifies is made to bear them up.
I want you to breathe out your “Amen” again and let it rest. You have asked, and the asking has reached the throne. Now let the heart fall quiet. The Lord sits upon the flood; yes, the Lord sits King forever. He will give strength to His people; He will bless His people with peace.
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Father, into Your keeping we commit every soul in the path of this wind and rain. Still the fury of the gale, shut up the floodgates of heaven where You see fit, and spread Your shelter over the homes where fear has entered tonight. Quiet the hearts of the anxious. Let Your children feel the nearness of the Shepherd who neither slumbers nor sleeps. And grant that when the morning breaks and the wind has passed, many shall look back and say, “The Lord was our refuge.” Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.