You are sailing along tending to your business when all of a sudden “out of the blue” comes a storm that capsizes your boat, messes up your well laid out plans, tosses your cherished comforts into the raging seas, and leaves you feeling helpless in the grip of the storm.

Your house needs a major unexpected repair, one for which you do not have the cash. You are told by your company’s human resources director that “we are moving in a different direction and are letting you go, effective at 5 PM today.” You find needles in your child’s dresser drawer. Your spouse is found to be having an extramarital affair. A routine physical turns into a cancer diagnosis. You wake up in the morning ready to take on the world only to end the day in the neurotrauma ICU after having suffered a stroke. A loved one suddenly dies, leaving you feeling numb and empty. It is all you can do to make it through today, let alone find the strength and energy to think about tomorrow. 

The psalms are divided into five books. Psalm 107 the first of the fifth book (Psalm 107-150). Psalm 107 complements 106, which is Israel’s confession of repeated disobedience and their prayer for divine favor and restoration. Psalm 107 begins like this – “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” The overall theme is a psalm of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for the purpose of making his wonderful deeds (v.8) known to all mankind. This psalm repeatedly shows the faithfulness of God despite the unfaithfulness of His chosen people, Israel. It is split into seven sections, the verses below being the fifth section.   

“And then there are the sailors sailing the seven seas, plying the trade routes of the world. They, too, observe the power of God in action. He calls to the storm winds; the waves rise high. Their ships are tossed to the heavens and sink again to the depths; the sailors cringe in terror. They reel and stagger like drunkards and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he saves them. He calms the storm and stills the waves. What a blessing is that stillness as he brings them safely into harbor!Oh, that these men would praise the Lord for his loving-kindness and for all of his wonderful deeds! Let them praise him publicly before the congregation and before the leaders of the nation” (vv.23-32, TLB).

Amidst any storm you face, no matter how big or small, God stands with you, and you can trust that He is still at the helm. In your sorrow and sadness, God feels your every hurt, and every tear is wiped away by His loving hands.

Every storm is a call to trust God. Every storm is a call to pray to the One who can both calm the storm and calm you as you feel surrounded by the storm. Every storm is a call to give thanks to God for His faithfulness and His loving kindness, regardless of the condition of your boat.  

So, what do you do when your boat capsizes?

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During the course of any given day, we are inundated with sounds and noises. Our hearing system connects us to the soundscape of our environment and provides us with the tools to identify and interpret acoustic cues. Our brain then catalogs those sound patterns, allowing us recognize and process sounds in the future, both familiar and unfamiliar ones.

For many of us, there is an incessant need for constant noise. That noise helps us feel safe, because in our silence we are sometimes left to address and deal with our thoughts, thoughts that often scare us. Silence often forces us to deal with the soundtrack in our souls, a soundtrack that plays and replays worries, fears, failures, all the things that keep us up at night. It is in the silence that we most often find the rest and relaxation that our body and soul truly need. And it is in that silence that we also frequently can hear the “voice” of God.

In my opinion, one of the toughest things in our noisy world is to create enough space and silence so as to hear God’s “still, small voice”. But if we are to follow Jesus in a serious life-changing way, we must find regular time to be quiet and listen. Psalm 46:10 tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Building this silence discipline into our lives requires work. It begins with a desire to carve out space. It requires giving up something, desiring to turn off the noise, and find stillness, find quietness, find stillness.

Timothy Leary, the Harvard clinical psychologist, and of hippie fame, encouraged young people in the Sixties to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” His countercultural phrase encouraged the usage of psychedelic drugs to find true consciousness. While that is certainly not my advice, I do think that if we “turn on” a sensitivity to God and His presence, if we “tune in” by listening, and if we regularly “drop out” of the noise around us, we will “find” God and be better able to hear, and be changed by, His “still, small voice.”

We find a reference to God’s still small voice, a gentle whisper, in 1 Kings 19:12. Elijah had just been victorious over all the prophets of Baal. He heard that Jezebel, the wife of king Ahab, wanted to kill him. So, Elijah ran into the wilderness to hide. God sent an angel with food and water, telling Elijah to go to Mount Horeb and wait. In that cave, Elijah voices his displeasure that all God’s prophets had been killed by Jezebel, all except him. God instructed Elijah to stand on the mountain and wait for His (God) presence. Elijah was likely expecting God’s to show up in a loud and powerful way. Yet, wind, an earthquake, and fire came and went, and no God. It is after those had passed that God spoke to Elijah, in a still, small voice. To read this story, click here: 1 Kings 18:16-19:13  

It is important to note that God is not confined to speaking in a still small voice. He speaks to us in many ways. God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind (Job 38:1). In Psalm 104:7, God’s voice sounded like thunder. To Moses, God appeared as fire coming from a bush (Exodus 3:2). God is not limited to a single method of communicating with us. Regardless of how He chooses to speak, it is of utmost importance that we hear and recognize His voice. And at least for me, I am best suited to hear God when I carve out time and space, eliminating as many distractions as I can.       

“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him” (Psalm 62:5).

“Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray” (Job 6:24).

So, take a page from the hippie playbook – turn on, tune in, drop out – and listen for God.

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We are a society that does not like waiting. Whether it is in line at the grocery store, at the drive-thru window, or at the security checkpoint at the airport, we just don’t like to wait. We are a microwave society; we want to push a few buttons and in one minute the meal is ready to eat. Even as the sixty seconds ticks off, we are antsy; we stand there tapping our foot as if to be saying to the microwave, “hurry up!”

When we are waiting, it seems like time crawls along at a turtle’s pace. You know this picture; you look at the clock and it reads ten minutes before three in the afternoon and after what seems like hours you look again, only to see that just ten minutes have passed. Every one of us struggles with some level of impatience; it is just in our DNA.

We often have those same “hurry up” demands of God. We ask Him for something, and we often, if not always, want instant results. And we tell Him what we want and when we want it. But God uses two things to grow our faith – pain and waiting. Not only that, God’s timing and ways, they are perfect. He knows what we need and when we need it. We find these words in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its own time.” Elsewhere in Scripture, we are told, “This God – his way is perfect, the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 18:30).

The Bible is filled with verses on waiting, and the benefit of waiting. In Psalm 27:14 we read, “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” In Micah 7:7 we see, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” God’s faithfulness is good to those who wait on him, “The LORD is good to those who wait for him, the soul who seeks him” (Lamentations 3:25).

King David gives us this, his personal experience of deliverance, “I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the LORD and put their trust in him” (Psalm 40:1-3). Notice David says that his renewed faith and confidence will inspire and encourage others as well.

So today, wait for the Lord. His timing is always perfect, even if from your limited perspective it seems as if He is moving at a turtle’s pace!

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We have had a busy week hanging out with Jesus, but it didn’t end as we had hoped. He hung on a cross and bled to death. Your suite at the Shalom Downtown Hilton has been nice, but you wake up this morning ready to go home. You pack your bags and get dressed, log on to the airline’s website to print out your boarding passes, then get ready to go down to the lobby for one last continental breakfast… when suddenly there is a heightened excitement out your window; something about the tomb being empty! You rush downstairs to see what all the excitement is about!

Early in the morning, women went to the tomb and found the stone closing the tomb’s entrance had been rolled away. An angel told them Jesus was alive – “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said (Matthew 28:5-6).” They excitedly (with fear and joy) left to tell the others. John tells us that after being told the news, “Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first (John 20:3-4).”

Imagine yourself running with the two disciples; are you pushing past them, wanting to be the first one to the tomb? Or do you hold back, hesitating, doubtful that the news is true, tired and ready to get home and get on with life? Do you think it is just a big April Fool’s Day joke? Be honest, today, do you live your life believing, not just in your mind, also in your heart, that Jesus is alive? Do others see that in you?

So, as you head home after a busy week, are you convinced more than ever before, that Jesus is resurrected, just as He said? The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty!

What a week it has been! How has this week changed you? If you take away only one thing this week, let it be this – “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).” The love Jesus demonstrated on the cross, the amazing grace He shows to you and to me… that love, that grace, is to be given away, shown to, everyone, every day, in every situation. That is how loving God is lived out!

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. (Luke 24:1-12)

Later that evening, after dinner, when two men who had encountered a third man on the road to Emmaus earlier in the day recognized him as Jesus, they returned to Jerusalem, and we read this…

“It is true! The Lord has risen and appeared to Simon.” (Luke 24:34)

Jesus has risen and is alive to give you new life. Receive His love and embrace your new life today! Now that you’ve walked with Jesus all through Holy Week, allow Him to walk with you as you navigate your way through life each and every day! It is my hope that walking with Jesus this week has brought you a new intimacy with Him, a deeper love, a greater faith, all of which carry over into a brighter tomorrow and every day after that. Thank you for allowing me to share my writings with you.

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In our journey through the Passion Week with Jesus, as you have imagined yourself in Jerusalem, on this day in between the crucifixion and the resurrection, you, like all the rest of the Jews, find yourself confused and discouraged. Jesus spent His entire life claiming to be the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6), one with the Father (John 10:30), He claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God. You don’t crucify the Son of God. That just doesn’t happen. But this man, who claimed all that is now dead. Confusion, tears, hopelessness, are all part of what you are feeling. If Jesus was crucified then He wasn’t who He claimed to be, and certainly not who we thought He was. There was no dream to keep alive, no movement to keep advancing; it was over.

Right now, wherever you are, do you know – because you know – that Jesus is your King, your Messiah, your Savior, your best friend, or do you sometimes wonder if that is true because you find yourself confused and discouraged? Like the apostles asked, take a minute and ask Jesus to “increase (y)our faith!” (Luke 17:5)  

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All this week we are “participating in” the life of Jesus, walking with Him, picturing ourselves not just in the crowd, watching from afar, but rather, up close and personal.

Different faith traditions call today by a variety of names, most commonly Holy Saturday, Black Saturday, or The Great Sabbath.

We know from the gospel accounts of Jesus’s death that after He was taken down from the Cross his body was placed in a tomb that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the ruling council who had not agreed with the decision to crucify Jesus. After the body was placed in the tomb a stone was rolled in front of the entrance. (Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38-42.)

We also know from Jewish law that the body was placed in the tomb before 6 PM; the hour that the Sabbath began and all work was required to stop. (The Sabbath is sundown to sundown.)

The Synoptics tell us that Mary Magdalene and Mary, Jesus’s mother, were at the tomb when Jesus was placed in it. You have probably been at a graveside service when the body of a deceased loved one was lowered into the ground. Tears flowed and your heart ached, knowing that you will never see that person again on this earth. Allow yourself to imagine what it must have been like at the very moment the tomb was sealed.

The only reference in scripture as to what happened on this day, 2,000 years ago, is found in Matthew’s gospel (27:62-66). The chief priests and other leaders met with Pilate to tighten up security at the tomb, knowing that Jesus said “After three days I will rise,” and that the disciples might be devising a plan to steal the body and claim Jesus had in fact risen. They too, should have been resting on the Sabbath, as required under the Law. At times, we are no different – keeping God’s commands when they are convenience and easy, violating them when they are inconvenient and hard.        

The disciples, heartbroken at the death of Jesus, observed the Jewish Sabbath in sorrow. They had allowed the darkness of their current situation to block out the promise that Jesus made to them – “for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hand of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.’” (Mark 9:31)

Right now, reflect upon a time in your own life when something ended, or seemingly had ended, not how you had hoped – Were you were filled with sadness as your mind went through all the “whys” and “what ifs,” wishing things could have been different?

Today, don’t let yesterday, the darkness of Good Friday, keep you from anticipating and seeing tomorrow, Easter, Resurrection Day!

“Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky, you can see the stars and still not see the light.” (Already Gone, Eagles)

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