July 3, 2025 Devo

A few weeks ago, I did a graveside funeral service at a cemetery not far from the church. I arrived about ten minutes before the service was to begin. As I got out of my car, it began to rain. By the time I got under the small shelter at the grave, it was pouring. The little shelter had an aluminum roof that amplified the noise of the storm. Lightning crashed and boomed, the thunder roared, and it was so loud that the funeral director and I decided to wait a bit before we started the service because no one would be able to hear. Finally, the storm subsided and actually left us with a beautiful sky and cool breeze. In the aftermath of that deafening storm, we had a beautiful service. We just had to wait.
The psalmist reminds us that though God doesn’t prevent the storms from happening, He doesn’t allow them to remain. The storms come in all their fury, sometimes in frightening ways, shaking us to the core. But they don’t stay. They pass. God calms the winds, silences the thunder, and settles the waves. The Lord is God over life’s storms. We need only to wait upon Him.
Waiting on Him isn’t always easy, is it? We’re often like the disciples on the boat with Jesus. They were all in a panic, and Jesus was soundly sleeping in the front of the boat. They couldn’t rest in His Presence. It wasn’t enough that He was THERE. They wanted more than just the NEARNESS of God. They wanted God to ACT. So their faith fled, and their fear took over. They woke Jesus up, declaring that He must not care if they drowned. But He DID care. The wind was blowing, and the boat was rocking, but Jesus was in complete control. Even as He rested in the stern, He was still God over the storm. All they needed to do was have faith and wait.
Jesus is Lord over YOUR storm today. The chaos doesn’t confuse Him. The noise and the unsettledness don’t scare Him. He’s fully aware of what is going on, and He will be with you through it all. And soon…probably sooner than you think, He will walk you out of the storm and into His Peace. You don’t have to panic. You don’t have to fear. Trust in the God who is with you even when He seems to be asleep. He has this storm, and He has YOU. Sometimes you just need to be still and wait. That’s God’s Word for you today.