Answering in the Storm

 

stormy sky

I cannot explain my mood, but small discouragements, internal and external, rolled into a somber smoldering cloud of emotion. The storm blew up quickly and then hung over my heart … heavy, dull-gray, oppressive.
 
Late in the afternoon, I heard the distant timpani of thunder. A storm was brewing outside the confines of my heart. I scanned the horizon from our balcony, but no clouds looked as if they meant business. Suddenly, I realized that I desperately wanted it to storm … I wanted to be in the midst of the storm. I walked to the back of our building and there were the heavy boiling clouds of rain. Their deep laughter spoke to me from the distance, but they remained aloof, hugging the heights of Altos del Maria. “Lord,” I prayed, “send the storm my way.”
 
A meteorologist might tell me that the storm’s course was determined long before the prayer, but it seemed only moments after I breathed those words that the clouds broke loose of the hills and raced past our building out to sea. When the storm was past, so was my dark mood. Is it strange to find your soul soothed by forces that others fear? I cannot put words to all the spiritual therapy of the tempest, but I never hear thunder without humble thoughts of God. Most often when I’m in turmoil … humility is what my soul needs most.
 
Maybe I’m wired like Job who could not, by reason alone, cease from all his emotional striving. Peace and clarity came only after … “the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.” Job 40:6
 
(Bonus)  For an interesting personal study use an online Bible search to query on words like: storm, thunder, wind, rain, etc. See how they are connected to God throughout the Bible. When you’re done, you may look at storms with new appreciation. Here’s a sample:
Praise the Lord from the earth … lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding.
Psalm 148:7

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