Thoughts of Grace

Oak Tree on the Church of God of Carmichael property

Good Morning

Mark 4:37 And there arose a great storm of wind, . . .

Some of the storms of life come suddenly;
a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat.
Some come slowly.
They appear upon the ragged edges of the horizon
no larger than a man’s hand,
but trouble that seems so insignificant spreads
until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.

Yet it is in the storm that God equips us for service.
When God wants an oak
He plants it on the moor where the storms will shake it
and the rains will beat down upon it,
and it is in the midnight battle with elements
that the oak wins its rugged fibre
and becomes the king of the forest.

When God wants to make a man He puts him into some storm.
The history of manhood is always rough and rugged.
No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm
and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer:
“O God, take me, break me, make me.”

The beauties of nature come after the storm.
The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm,
and heroes of life are the storm-swept
and the battle-scarred.

You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts.
Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley
or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits
of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood?
Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept
and the battle scarred? ~~Selected

Mark 4:35-41, Amplified Bible
On that same day [when] evening had come, He said to them, Let us go over to the other side [of the lake]. And leaving the throng, they took Him with them, [just] as He was, in the boat [in which He was sitting]. And other boats were with Him. And a furious storm of wind [of hurricane proportions] arose, and the waves kept beating into the boat, so that it was already becoming filled. But He [Himself] was in the stern [of the boat], asleep on the [leather] cushion; and they awoke Him and said to Him, Master, do You not care that we are perishing? And He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Hush now! Be still (muzzled)! And the wind ceased (sank to rest as if exhausted by its beating) and there was [immediately] a great calm (a perfect peacefulness). He said to them, Why are you so timid and fearful? How is it that you have no faith (no firmly relying trust)? And they were filled with great awe and feared exceedingly and said one to another, Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey Him?

Endure your storm . . .Today
With my prayers, desiring yours, Leslie