Article #12 (www.fatherspiritson.com)

Worship In The Midst of a Storm

        When everything is going perfectly fine and everyone around us is seemingly healthy, happy, and satisfied a lot of us are more than willing to recognize God's plans as being executed and we are confident that regardless of the circumstances that may come we will maintain the same attitude. In our minds we will always be reliant on God and focused on His will. It doesn't even cross our minds that we may not be able to stand firm in our reverence and worship when life throws curve-balls at us. When these curve-balls do hit us, however, we do sometimes begin to struggle in our faith.

        Some people draw closer to God during the bad times, and then when things are rectified and back to normal they revert back to a worldly lifestyle instead of a Christian walk of faith. Where is the gratitude and acknowledgement that God deserves from us? Don't we remember that our very lives were paid for by Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross and that we owe Him more than we could ever repay?

        Others tend to draw closer to Him in the good times and then as soon as the first sign of difficulty turns it's face up, they immediately turn away from God. I think that this is because they misunderstand God's character and instead of genuinely accepting Him and turning away from their sin, they choose to drift away from Him as soon as the walk becomes challenging. Shouldn't we obey, honor, and praise Him regardless of the circumstances? Did we forget that God has us in the palm of His hand and everything is under control?

        Personally, I try to thank God and recognize that His will is being done both in good times and bad times. I truly believe that this is the way God would like for us all to be. I am not claiming that I always praise God in the midst of the storms of life, but it is definitely something I practice and aspire to do. We should never question God's plans, for He never promised that we would perfectly understand every occurrence that comes to light in our lives.

        Allow me to share this story with you:

        A while back I was going to school, working with OfficeMax as a sales intern, and playing Warcraft 3: TFT semi-competitively. I knew it was an ambitious work-load that I was taking on for the semester, but I was confident that God would help me pull through it and everything would work itself out. Little did I know that I would get overwhelmed both physically and mentally from this exhausting schedule that I set out to accomplish. In my mind I was pretty sure that this was what I needed to be doing, but as stubborn and hard-headed as I was to take on this overly ambitious schedule, God had other plans in mind for my life.

        To make a long story short, after the overwhelming experience, I had to go ahead and drop my classes and my job. I needed the time off to clear my mind, so I took quite a bit of time to recover and reflect on what had happened. Today I am confident that God had this all figured out as part of His divine plan. I am certain now that He wanted to teach me a lesson on reliance. God wants us to keep on focusing on Him and glorifying, honoring, and acknowledging Him in all our ways no matter what circumstances we may be facing. Sure I had good intentions to graduate on time (I would have been graduating now in 2009), and continue my work with OfficeMax where I planned to embark on my career after graduation. However, God simply had other plans in mind.

        To this day I am not 100% sure I understand why this happened to me. What I do know with 100% certainty is that God was in control before, during, and after the overwhelming experience. He taught me to rely on Him both in good times and bad times. I am happy to submit to God's will because I know that #1 He created me. & #2 He has my best interests at heart.

        I would like to extend this challenge to you all today: Praise and worship God in the midst of whatever storm you may be facing. He will certainly delight in your actions, and you will learn to appreciate the mysteries of His plans being fulfilled in your lives. Eventually you will be compensated for your obedience and reap special rewards according to His plan and timing.

        As always, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback or questions feel free to contact Jim and I at [email protected] . We check this e-mail periodically and will try to respond in a timely manner.

Victor Nunez