Luke 8
March 29, 2019
You Know You're Getting Old When...
1. Your joints are more accurate than the National Weather Service.
2. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
3. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
4. Happy hour is a nap.
5. Your back goes out more than you do.
6. "Getting a little action" means you don't need to take a laxative.
Aging is just one of the storms we face in life. There are many others. A few of the storms I have encountered this week include relational storms, employment storms, financial storms, health storms and emotional storms. This much is true; there is nothing more inevitable than each of us facing multiple storms in our lives. Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled, opens with the sentence, "Life is difficult." Most of you reading this blog probably find yourself smack dab in the middle of a storm right now.
Luke gives us a few strategies on making it through the storms.
First, don't freak out when a storm arrives. Storms are largely unpredictable. Luke records, "A squall came down." In Matthew it says, "Without warning a furious storm came up". Try as we may, we cannot predict the things that will happen to us. They are largely unforeseen. None of us even know what storms will arrive in our lives over the next 6 hours.
Storms are impartial; they hit both "good" and "bad" people. They happen to believers and they happen to unbelievers. They happen to all of us. Being a Christ follower does not exempt us from dealing with storms. Some people have the misconception that they only have tough times when they're disobeying God. That's not true. The disciples got into a storm after they had obeyed Jesus.
Storms give us an opportunity to trust God. After the storm was calmed, Jesus asked, "Where is your faith?" This means the disciples had made the wrong choice in this test of faith. Rather than opting for peace, they chose panic, which also happens to be my default reaction. Every storm is an opportunity for us to say, "I refuse to panic because I believe Jesus is in my boat."
So, regardless of the storm that is in your life, you get to choose, panic or peace.
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