To the wanderer, the guilt-ridden, and the hurting, Psalm 107 is your landing page. It's a place of recognition, and of promise.
We've covered all three of these seasons of our life over the last three blog posts and today we will cover the last. Be sure to catch up on the others if you haven't read them yet-- you will get to see the entire painting and beauty of this Psalm that so drastically changed my life. I pray it will encourage you, too.
This final season of life that we will look at may resonate the greatest with you, especially right now. 2020 has been a real doozy!
What I pray that you will see in this passage of scripture is not necessarily how to armor-up for the storm or how to make it cease, but how to experience the storm with Christ. Because the storm changes us and our environment and our perspective. Let's lean in...
The Sea-Sick
To the Sea-Sick,
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume here that you didn’t ask for any of the storms in your life. In fact, most of us live to avoid the storms. But you've not escaped. Not by a long shot. You are tired of the crashing waves and the never-ending sway. It's one wave after another. You can't seem to catch a break or a breath.
The saying, "at your wit's end" means that all of your wisdom is used up and you can't even think straight through the pounding waves. Being sea-sick is a helpless feeling-- you can't make it stop and you don't know how long it will last. You just keep swaying.
But not all storms happen without our permission. Some, we walk into knowing that it won't be easy. Verse 23, “Some went out on the sea in ships.” Is a reminder that we can go willingly and obediently, but there will never be a guarantee of manageable waters.
Verse 26, “They (the waves) mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.”
Verse 28, “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress.”
The key to not only surviving, but conquering a season of sea-sickness is know this; Calming the seas is not our job, but the Lord’s. Performing the miracle is out of our wheelhouse, otherwise we would never experience the storms.
So we take our eyes off of the waves and fix them on the Storm-Tamer. As we do this, we find redemption in our hardest seasons.
Our experience of being rescued by God requires a response, don't you think?
“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those He redeemed from the hand of the foe, those He gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” Psalm 107:2-3
This is the greatest privilege of our life; to be rescued by God in His mercy and then to have the chance to personally thank and praise Him. You walk through storms so that God can change parts of you that aren't fully His yet.
The most important work that you may ever do is to share the story of your redemption. Because God in His mercy can redeem it, our job is to declare it and to share it.
The greatest disservice that we can give is to make people believe that we’ve survived in our own strength.
So, in our wandering, in our guilt, in our sickness, and in the storms of life, we are never alone. God sent Jesus because He believed that we are worth saving. And now, He's here for the rescue. That is the story worth sharing.
You are worth the rescue and He is worthy of the praise of our life.
With Love,
Em
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