Provision through the storm

Some of us who read RBC Ministries' "Our Daily Bread" notes have spotted in the past how at times they are uncannily relevant to what is happening on the day they are meant for. This is the case even though they are written some nine months in advance.

Of course, you could say that this would happen anyway by the laws of chance. Yet God moves in mysterious ways. In the lovely book of Ruth (2:3 ESV), we are told about the destitute heroine, "So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz" - the very man who was in a position to transform the situations of her and her mother-in-law! Did it just happen - or was it divine Providence?

Let me quote Jennifer Benson Schuldt's article from this Sunday in full:

"Early one morning the wind began to blow and raindrops hit my house like small stones. I peered outside at the yellow-gray sky and watched as trees thrashed in the wind. Veins of lightning lit the sky accompanied by bone-rattling thunder. The power blinked on and off, and I wondered how long the bad weather would continue.

"After the storm passed, I opened my Bible to begin my day with reading Scripture. I read a passage in Job that compared the Lord’s power to the atmospheric muscle of a storm. Job’s friend, Elihu said, 'God thunders marvelously with His voice' (37:5). And, 'He covers His hands with lightning, and commands it to strike' (36:32). Indeed, God is 'excellent in power' (37:23).

"Compared to God, we humans are feeble. We’re unable to help ourselves spiritually, heal our hearts, or fix the injustice we often endure. Fortunately, the God of the storm cares about weaklings like us; He 'remembers that we are dust' (Ps. 103:14). What’s more, God 'gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength' (Isa. 40:29). Because God is strong, He can help us in our weakness."


That very night, the worst storm in decades "happened" to hurtle across southern England. It symbolised many things. We humans are resentful when we come across outbreaks of power beyond our control. They may be forces of nature, the attitudes of assertive people, or weaknesses in ourselves. We wonder whether God cares because He does not prevent these things from happening or take them away at once. Yet the evidence of the Bible is that God is supremely powerful, that He does not forget us, and that in Christ He empowers believers even in the midst of their weakness.

The punchy thought at the end reads, "God is the source of our strength".

Isaac Watts wrote a much-used hymn that began,

I sing the mighty power of God
That made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad
And built the lofty skies.

Later verses - one of them left out of most modern hymn books - run:

In heaven He shines with beams of love,
with wrath in hell beneath:
'tis on His earth I stand or move,
and 'tis His air I breathe.

His hand is my perpetual guard,
He guides me with His eye;
why should I then forget the Lord,
who is for ever nigh?

Scripture (unless otherwise stated) taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Shade and shelter

Spending time in rural Oxfordshire, where the weather has turned autumnal and chilly, I recall the heat of Spain as a distant memory. Given that I don't do heat, the change is not altogether unwelcome. I ponder the subject of protection – protection from heat and protection from storms.

I noticed that, given the choice, the Spanish when out walking keep to whichever pavement is in the shade at any given time. Places shaded from direct sunlight are appreciably cooler than those that aren't. We in the UK are more likely to shun the shade as bringing a chill into our lives. Yet for someone from a hot climate it plays an important role in sheltering them from the pitiless and unremitting rays of the sun.

Although in this country we know little of weather which is unremitting and intense (even though periods of heavy rain seem close to that description), many know trials and troubles that are a daily pressure in their lives. Every morning they wake up only to find themselves living that day with some stark reality that never goes away. It may be a violent death in the family or a disabling personal injury. It may be the knowledge that someone in their home has been abusive or manipulative towards them, and they fear each new day may bring further disquieting incidents. It may be a heavy responsibility that is a daily strggle to fulfil, like a daily increasing debt to a moneylender.

If freedom in the Lord Jesus is to mean anything to a person thus trapped, it needs to include shelter and shade from the relentless daily pressure of these things. This is true even if the problems themselves cannot simply be caused to vanish overnight. It will mean that quality of befriending where a Christian friend comes alongside to give companionship and a listening ear at least. Then maybe professional help can be found – legal maybe, or medical or financial – that can actually tackle the problem at root.

I’ve been impressed lately by the way a Christian money advice organisation, Christians Against Poverty (CAP) works in my locality. Debt coaches and befrienders arrange for practical advice and help to be given and, without preaching or pressure, look for ways in which they may gently introduce clients to the spiritual freedom that comes of knowing Christ and being part of His people.

In Psalm 23 the psalm-writer famously speaks of the "shadow of death" through which God will lead him.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4 ESV)

God is to the believer a benign type of shade:

The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. (Psalm 121:5-6)

The prophet Isaiah predicted that one day a righteous King-Messiah would rule over God’s people and be to them like shelter and shade:

Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. (Isaiah 32:1-2)

May thousands more who are trapped in vicious circles of their own or others’ making come to sing like the hymn-writer

The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide,

a shelter in the time of storm.