Contexts of natural storms threaten life experience, cause fear, take tolls, and challenge our creative instincts. The Great Depression, beginning in 1929, broke near the date my father died. Not a penny was left to aid my mother, or take care of three small children. Depression debris was strewn into every department of life, and littered for more than ten years until World War II exploded the world out of economic travail. For years my mother rented an old Victorian house, and held on to her children by taking in roomers and boarders. She learned to cope. Since that time I have seen the storms of nature that have killed thousands of persons; warfare that robbed me of friends; weather changes that drove farmers from dusty fields to lonely city streets. The daily life storms of greatest sorrow were those ongoing that struck families, wounding the lives of millions of men, women and children. Some chose death rather than life.
Every area, every context, every human and natural environment can be visited with endemic storms. Fire, flood, tornadoes destroy, causing considerable suffering. Diseases periodically hit: with the sweep of tuberculosis, influenza, and cancer taking millions of lives; and, with new ones like AIDS and other death-dealing diseases creating fear and grief. Storms are a given to human beings, but mankind seems to know only a little about how to treat or manage them, to overcome in them, to become better persons because of them. The Apostle listed some of the storms of his life. The list is shocking, mind blowing. He summarized to his readers that he learned how to abound and to suffer want. He could manage being rich or poor, in good health or ill almost to death, in shipwreck or house arrest in a house in Rome. He made his living selling tents, but that took time from his ministry. He must have been harried. In one way of life or the other, he was unafraid. Undaunted in a context of faith, whatever the situation, he was an overcomer. Storms challenged any belief that the natural order might meet human needs. Of varying severity, various storms are inevitable to the natural order. In some way they serve us. In all this there is mysterious blessing. Like Jacob of old, we may not recognize the fact.
It is somewhat disappointing to hear that some Christians are fearful of losing their jobs; fearful of the elements of nature; fearful of warfare that may be costly in life and resources; fearful that they are in harm’s way. I was a speaker in Florida, guest with my wife in a hotel. I invited the maid to do her chores disregarding us. She was friendly and asked my wife about our home. San Francisco? Oooooh, I wouldn’t go there! You have earthquakes. I responded that Florida had hurricanes claiming more lives than earthquakes. Yes, I can handle a hurricane, but not an earthquake. With my luck, if I was in California there would be an earthquake. She was serious, but I found myself smiling at her responses. I continue to wonder why we do not use the storms of life to draw together, to check our lifestyles for poor judgments, to recognize that these are strong evidences from God that a natural world is temporary. Storms may be expected that will not be assuaged. Safety will not be found. Deliverance and peace will come from the care of God. In this there is relief from fear. Our real problems reside within ourselves. Immortality wins, or it can when we join its provisions. I give pause to some statements I hear or read. One was: If all problems were wrapped individually for claim by some person across the room, and all persons were free to claim the bundle he would choose, he would likely go for his own bundle. He, if mature, has learned how to manage that bundle. That choice is likely if we have given adequate attention, prayer, and application in the forming of that problem bundle. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020