Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

 

God never wastes an opportunity to instruct us in our faith.  A saying of a wise man found in Proverbs 24:32, “I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw,” illustrates that fact nicely.  God has lessons surrounding us everyday, but unless we take the time to truly connect God and His promises with the trials, the distractions, and the miscommunications of our day those teachable moments simply become stressful moments we must endure.

The disciples were urged by Jesus to get in a boat with Him and cross over to the other side of a lake.  In the midst of their voyage, after Jesus had fallen asleep a ferocious storm suddenly developed tossing the boat wildly over the waves.  The disciples were in a panic and feared they would drown. They woke Jesus and accused Him of being insensitive to their overwhelming situation.  Jesus simply stood up and told the storm to quiet down and it did!  Then he confronted the disciples with a lesson about fear and faith. 

I recently took a very long road trip to the other side of the country. The trip was a very eventful one from Houston to Los Angeles in a Ford Explorer Sport with my daughter, Sarah, her two surfboards on top, a bicycle on the back and filled with all her worldly possessions. The goal of the trip was to find her an apartment and move her things into it before the next Thursday when we would be flying back to Houston.  We set out early one Thursday morning full of hope and anticipation.  However a few hours into the trip a ferocious storm engulfed us as we made it to the other side of San Antonio.  The sky grew as black as night, the rain was so heavy that I could not see but a few feet in front of me.  I decided to pull off the road into a convenience store parking lot in Comfort, Texas, of all places.  We definitely needed some comfort!  I began to pray for God’s protection as we sat in the parking lot. Looking down at my phone, I noticed a text from a dear friend saying she was praying Psalm 121:7-8 for us.  Interestingly enough, those were the very verses I had begun memorizing that week!  She had no idea of the storm we were in, but God did, as the verses proclaim, “The Lord will keep you from all harm – he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”  I saw the words and tried to connect the promise to the thunderstorm in which I found myself.  My faith was shaky at best.

We drummed up courage and tried to convince ourselves that the storm was weakening.  However as we got only a few more miles down the road the wind began to blow so hard that it was a struggle to keep the car on the road. Sarah made a quick check on her phone and found that we were not only in an area where there was a severe thunderstorm warning, but also a tornado warning as well!  As I was fluctuating between faith and fear, my cell phone rang- it was my mom calling.  Just a couple of weeks prior to our leaving my mom had emergency surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her colon.  My concentration on driving through a storm had caused me to briefly forget that my mom would find out that morning if the cancer had spread. As I answered the phone I braced myself for possible bad news.  To my great relief the words “The cancer has not spread,” brought peace and calm in the midst of facing a west Texas thunderstorm. It reminded me of a scripture I have often prayed, “Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.”  We had rain and wind the rest of that day until we reach our first day destination:  sunny El Paso!  The Lord had watched over our coming and going and brought us safely to the other side.  Another interesting fact is the meaning of El Paso:  “the crossing of the river.” 

As I reflect on this first day of travel many God lessons come to my mind, but one stands out:  When I trust in myself fear engulfs me; when I trust in God’s promise to watch over me His love covers me and causes the fear to subside.  Thank you Lord for calming the storms physically, emotionally and relationally in my life and for forgiving me of accusing you of sleeping in the midst of my storms. 

“He who watches over you does not slumber!”    Psalm 121:3