People say that God is never late. I say that He sure seems slow sometimes.
Why doesn’t He answer your prayers to bring you someone to share your life with or someplace to call home? The medical breakthrough that could bring you a new lease on life or the help you need when you’ve been biting off more than you can chew?
When is He going to show up with the answer you need or the money you owe? Or to fix what’s wrong in the church or avenge the one who wronged you in your family?
Where is He when your daughter’s fighting cancer or you’re fumbling your career? When you’re at the end of your rope or the beginning of a terrifying storm?
Sometimes God seems so unbelievably silent. This seems especially true in the storms of our life.
Are you in a storm of some kind? It seems we all are right now, but perhaps you have a storm within a storm. I’m here to help you not to forget to remember.
As you pray let peace take over your mind. Peace and the single mom can help when you are stressed and need relief. HERE.
We tend to do that in times of downpour. The disciples did. One day Jesus got into a boat with them and said He wanted to go to the other side of a lake. Then, He fell asleep. That’s when a windstorm came down on them. It must have been a whopper because the boat began to take on water. What started out as a merry version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat turned into the theme song for Titanic.
And Jesus slept right through it.
He was so very… silent!
Feel familiar?
The seasoned fishermen shook. You better believe they woke the weary Teacher up. “Jesus, we’re dying! Don’t you care?”
He did care, and He told the wind and the raging waves so.
Then, He turned His attention back to the guys in the boat. He had something to say to them too. There, in the calm of yet another miracle, He asks them: Where is your faith?
Not the most comforting thing to say to a few grown men who’d probably just lost their lunch about the time they lost their cool. But Jesus doesn’t stroke their egos, as we are prone to do. Instead, He cuts to the chase, essentially asking, Did you forget Who I Am? Did you forget Who is with you?
They had, in fact, forgotten Who was with them. In spite of all the amazing things they had been witness to, the men cowered when a storm brewed.
Can you identify?
If so, the prophet Habakkuk is just the tutor we both need. Oh, at the beginning of his three-chapter book, he doesn’t seem to be. In fact, he’s dreadfully afraid of the future and seems to be the poster child for doubt, fear, and questioning God. He has a big case of spiritual amnesia. But by the end of the book, his memory kicks in, and he becomes a shining example of how the righteous live by faith. And so much of faith has to do with remembering.
I once heard that to remember is “to put back what is dismembered.” Much as you would reattach a limb if it were tragically lost, hopelessness requires us to re-member what’s been missing in our minds and souls. We’re invited to put our faith back where it belongs.
Oh, if only God offered us immediate results for our prayer requests and did not make us dust off our patience, dig up some steadfast staying power, and muster up our joy! But He often takes us through monsoon seasons that require those very things of us. Often when we come out the other side, we see that God has used it to help us remember our faith.
When Jesus stilled the wind and raging waters that day on the lake for the fearful fishermen, He used it to invite them to remember what they’d lost for a moment. Luke records that the Savior asked them: Where is your faith?
He didn’t ask: Don’t you have any faith?
He knew they had it. I imagine Him asking them this in the same tone He might have asked them, Well, where were your raincoats? Don’t you think they could have been helpful in this situation?
This was just the prompting they needed to remember. They turned to one another and said, Who is this!? Even the winds and water obey him!
The question is not answered, but one is implied: God is with us!
Whatever “wind” and “water” you’re facing in your storm, I assure you this: God is with you. Even if you’ve forgotten to remember that.
Dannah Gresh is the best-selling author, speaker, and founder of True Girl (formerly Secret Keeper Girl), America’s most popular Christian tween event. Along with this, Dannah is the co-host for Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s Revive Our Hearts. She has authored over 20 books that have been translated into 12 languages, including And the Bride Wore White and Lies Girls Believe. Considered one of the leading experts on the subjects of sexual theology and parenting tweens and teens, her resources have equipped over one million moms and leaders as they seek to raise their girls in confidence and Truth. Over 400,000 have attended her live events. Dannah is a popular guest on programs like Focus on the Family and Family Life. She has appeared on CNN, Fox News, and the TEDx stage. She lives on a hobby farm in State College, Pennsylvania with her husband, Bob, and over 20 animals.
The Life of a Single Mom is a national, faith-based, nonprofit that exists to see that no single mom walks alone. To date, the organization has worked with hundreds of churches to start a single mom’s support group in cities throughout the U.S. and beyond, as well as having served hundreds of thousands of single mothers with a variety of programs. Offering a large array of books, curriculum, training materials, online instructional videos, podcasts, newsletters, life skills education, and more, TLSM is one of the largest single mom organizations in the U.S. The robust selection of single mom programs focus on empowering single moms to grow spiritually, emotionally, financially, and parentally through Single Mom University, Single Moms Across America, the National TLSM Single Moms Conference, boot camps, and a variety of other programs. For more information, visit www.thelifeofasinglemom.com.
