When you’re caught in a small boat on a stormy ocean – what you discover is how much you love good old terra firma. The more firma, the less terra, right? So how do you get some solid ground beneath your feet?

I am really excited to be starting a new series this week on the program that I’ve called, “On Solid Ground”. Now I have to tell you I am definitely a land lover, I like to have terra firma under my feet. In particular, I don’t like being out on the water on the ocean, in fact, the more firmer the less terror if you get my drift. I have this basic theory that, if God had meant us to be out on the ocean he would have given us gills or at the very least, steering wheels and rudders right? And for me, there’s nothing more terrifying than being out on a stormy ocean.

I’d much rather be standing on solid ground looking out at the stormy ocean than being out there on it and yet, it seems that in life we do travel through stormy oceans and we do have to live through those storms. That’s one of the central dilemmas of life, surviving those storms. In fact not just surviving them but learning to ride through them with a peace and a confidence because, well they happen; it’s just the way things are. What we really want is we want solid ground under our feet but it’s not always possible, or is it?

That’s the dilemma, dealing with the storms of life. I remember when I was a young boy; I sailed in a ship from Australia to Europe. It was a four week trip each way through the Suez Canal and it was such a long way. I was only four or five years old and along the way, I remember to this day, we had some HUGE storms and this great ocean liner rolled around like you can’t believe, there were ropes in the corridors to hand on to. I’ve never forgotten those storms, I was so sea sick and I was very, very afraid.

Even though we were such a big ship and you’d go up on the deck and you’d look out the port hole or if you dared, go out onto the deck and these massive waves, they were like, they were like buildings, would come towards the ship and just toss it around, it was pitching around in this fearsome ocean and for me there’s nothing as frightening as that angry sea and the violent storm and the ground, as it were, is moving under your feet.

Now for some people, life seems to be a constant storm, the ground underneath their feet is never solid. There’s always some fear and uncertainty and they never quite figure it out and many of these people even believe in God and yet life seems to be this endless storm. Question is, how do I get some solid ground under my feet? Well that’s what we’re going to be exploring in this series that I’ve called On Solid Ground, starting right here and now.

Now today, we’re just going to head out on the ocean with some fishermen and take a look at what it was like for them. These fishermen were disciples, they were followers of Jesus. Remember, they’re seasoned fishermen, they’d been doing this all their lives, let’s have a look at how they handled the storm. Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 22:

One day Jesus says to His disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” So they get in the boat and set out. As they sailed Jesus falls asleep and this squall comes down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger and the disciples went to Him and woke Him and said, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown.” He got up, He rebuked the wind and the raging waters and the storm subsided and all was calm. “Where’s your faith?” He asked the disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him.

Now these fishermen, they were afraid because they knew the terrible consequences of the storm swamping their boat. Now it may sound a bit silly but, well they wouldn’t have had to worry about they consequences if they were fish, if they’d had gills and fins because it’s not dangerous for a fish to fall into the ocean or in this case, the lake. The people, they’re fishermen, well it’s a whole different story, we fall into a stormy sea and we end up drowning and that’s what their fear was all about, that’s why they panicked. And when we’re in the middle of a storm, that’s what our fear is all about. It’s the fear of being swamped, it’s the fear of losing our grip, it’s the fear of drowning.

I never cease to be amazed in life, the different circumstances this world, this life on this planet seems to be able to conjure up and hurl at me in the form of a storm. The tensions, the oppositions, the challenges and sometimes they come so rapidly, one after the other that no matter how strong or resilient we are, it feels like we’re being swamped.

And here’s the bottom line for you and me, just as with those fishermen, we’re made to live on solid ground, not in the ocean. We’re not made to live out on that stormy ocean in fear of drowning 24×7, even though that’s sometimes where we find ourselves at in life. We’re not made to be swamped by the ocean, we’re made for terra firma, we’re made to be on solid ground, would you agree?

Whether you’re a fisherman or a land lover like me, whether you’re a thrill seeker or someone who prefers a quieter life, none of us is made for the constant battering by storms out there on angry oceans and yet sometimes we can’t avoid them. Sometimes, like those fishermen, we just have to be out there on that sea and the storm hits and there ain’t a thing that we can do about it.

At the end of the day we’re land lovers, the lot of us but we need to know how to ride that storm. I’ve seen people where storms seem to go on half a lifetime, others have precious few but as resilient as a character I am, I have had to learn how to ride a storm with confidence, are you with me, otherwise you end up drowning? Read that passage again:

One day Jesus says to His disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” So they get in the boat, they sail, He falls asleep, a squall comes down and hits them so that the boat is being swamped and they’re in danger and the disciples went and woke Him and said, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown.” He gets up, He rebukes the wind, the raging waters, the storm subsides, all is calm and He goes, “Well, where’s your faith?” In fear and amazement they ask one another, “Who is this? How can He command even the winds and the water and they obey Him?”

See, to them it was startling and surprising. It’s not a myth, this is historical fact. It’s easy to write this off as some fable but it’s never meant to be that. With all my heart I believe it’s an historical record and these fishermen go, “This is amazing”. It’s something completely new; they’d never seen it before. Now they learned some things about God that day, in fact they learned 3 things.

They discovered that God was in the boat with them. That He had both the will and the means of doing the impossible, of calming the storm and saving them from it. And thirdly almost the most incongruous thing of all, they discovered that safely riding out the storm was a matter of faith.

This week and next week on the program, we’re going to meet some people who learned that in their lives. See, you just can’t memorise those three dot points and go, “I’m ready, bring on the storms, I can do this” because you don’t learn this sipping pina colada’s by the pool. You don’t learn this by memorising three dot points.

You have to learn this only one way; the hard way. By getting in the boat and being hit by the storm and exercising your faith. So that’s why, over these next couple of weeks on the program, we’re going to learn what this means in our lives. It’s riveting stuff so make sure you join me each and every day.

Ok, so … the going gets tough! The storm hits, now what? Let’s meet a woman who’s been there and done that and see what we can learn from there. The woman’s name? … Hannah!

We’re going to meet someone today who was dealt a cruel blow in her life. She was a beautiful young woman called Hannah who, to the taunts of those around her, remained childless for many years. And yet in the midst of this most painful storm of her life she discovered a peace, a peace that surpassed all understanding. It doesn’t matter who we are or where we’re at in life, storms are going to come along and hit us when we least expect them. We can’t change that but what we do in the middle of that storm, well it makes such a huge difference.

And that’s why I’d love to have the opportunity to spend just the next few minutes sharing in Hannah’s journey ’cause I have this hunch that there are just a few of us that need that encouragement today. Is that a reasonable thing to do? Maybe there’s no storm in your life at the moment, maybe there’s clear blue sky, well that’s fabulous but what we discover together in these next few moments might just be something that you can tuck away in your heart and pull out the next time those storm clouds start brewing.

If you’ve got a Bible grab it because we’re going to have a bit of a look at the book of 1 Samuel, the first few chapters, over these coming days and weeks. We’re going to discover a truth that we kind of know, that we should know and yet it kind of gets lost in the world that we live in. It’s a ‘me’ centred world, we keep on going to God and asking for these things for me, me, me.

You know, I sometimes think that we’re trying to turn Him into a performing poodle. “You know, God do tricks on my command, when I say ‘now, jump’, when I say ‘now’, deliver this”. You think there’s a risk to that? I think there is, in a very “me” centred world. It may seem harsh but you turn God the wrong way round and you get ‘dog’, right? Am I expecting God to dance to my tune or am I dancing to His tune? Good question, it’s what we’re going to explore in this story and it begins with a storm.

A woman called Hannah, it turns out she’s going through some really rough times but she, she has the Creator/creature relationship the right way up. This is what the story says in the book of 1 Samuel:

There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph who’s an Ephramite. He had two wives; one was called Hannah, the other one Peninnah and Peninnah had children but Hannah didn’t. Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were the priests of the Lord.

Whenever the day came for Elkannah to go and sacrifice he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters but to Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb and because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her to irritate her. This went on year after year, whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her until she wept and would not eat. Elkanah her husband would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

Pretty rough wasn’t it? It’s a real storm, anybody who’s been through that pain of not being able to have children. Imagine somebody else who has kids, your husbands other wife, taunting you like that, absolutely brutal and Hannah has lots of choices. She could have lashed out, she could have been angry, she could have withdrawn, she could have given up and her husbands pretty useless, typical bloke. He says:

Hannah, why are you crying? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?

Like, well you’ve got me, everything is okay. Hannah is going through the incredible pain of not being able to have children. She’s one of two wives, something you saw in early civilisation even in the Bible. Really pleased that’s something that’s gone away. Can you imagine the rivalry and this ongoing white hot skewer in that relationship?

So what does Hannah do? As I said, she had a whole bunch of choices; to retaliate, to act up badly, to give up, to curl up in the corner and give up on life and die. To spend a life complaining, let the bitterness consume her, what does she do in her perfect storm? Here’s the story:

Once they’d finished eating and drinking at Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lords temple. In the bitterness of her soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord.” (Look at it, a sad picture) “And she made a vow saying, “O Lord Almighty, if you would only look upon your servants misery and remember me and do not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

And as she kept praying to the Lord, Eli the priest observed her mouth, Hannah was praying in her heart but her lips were moving but her voice wasn’t heard and Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine.” “Not so my lord” Hannah replied, “I’m a woman who is deeply troubled. I’ve not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Don’t take your servant for a wicked woman, I’ve been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” And Eli answers, “Well go in peace and may God of Israel grant you what you’ve asked of Him.” She said, “May your servant find favour in your eyes.” Then she went away, she ate something and her face was no longer downcast.

See it turns out, she does have a son, calls him Samuel, gives him over to God as soon as he was weaned and Samuel comes and serves as a priest, in this temple, under Eli, whom we discover later is a really bad dude. He’s the priest, he’s supposed to be the “go between” between God and His people and yet, he and his sons have no respect whatsoever for God. We’ll look at them another time.

Now, notice she doesn’t lash out or whine or complain, she humbles herself before God and asks her Sovereign God, pours her heart out to Him in her grief and Eli, this scoundrel, with about as much spiritual insight as my pet cat, thinks she’s drunk and gives her platitudes and yet here’s this simple woman, at the bottom of the heap, pouring her heart out to God and notice what it says after she does that, verse 18 chapter 1:

Then she went her way and ate something and her face was no longer downcast.

See, Hannah’s feet were on solid ground. Even before her prayer is answered, this seemingly impossible prayer. You know what this tells me, she trusted God. No matter what His answer would be, she trusted her God. She let it go, she stopped worrying and God answered her prayer.

Some things sound too simple. It sounds too easy to go to God and pour your heart out and hand it over to Him. It seems that it could never possibly make a difference but pouring our hearts out to God is like a first step of putting our feet on solid ground. In fact, sometimes it’s the only step we have.

Now you might say to me, “Berni no, it’s too simple. In any case what difference could it make? God already knows my problem”. And I’d say this to you; this is something that, over the years, I’ve known and so often forgotten to do. Not ’til I hit rock bottom sometimes do I remember and every time I do it you know what happens? He puts my feet on solid ground – He just does!

Different people handle the rough times differently. Some seem to find a peace in the middle of it all. For others, it’s a complete disaster. Let’s meet some people at different ends of that spectrum.

Over the last couple of days on the program we’ve been taking a look at how different people weather the storms of life. And in particular yesterday, we met Hannah, a woman who had been childless for years, taunted by others and in her pain, poured out her heart to God and discovered, when she did that, God gave her peace. And not only that but God answered her with a son and she gives that son back to God but what comes next is a prayer of thanksgiving and rejoicing. We’ll take a look at that in a moment

And then we’re going to look at some men, men who were around Hannah at the same time, priests in fact, Gods men but when Hannah knew how to approach God to get her feet on solid ground, these so called priests hadn’t a clue. In fact, Hannah on the one hand and the priests, Eli and his sons on the other were like chalk and cheese. Opposite ends of the scale and the outcomes for each of them, in their storms, well they were at opposite ends of the scale too. My hunch is there’s something in that for us so let’s check it out. Now listen to what Hannah prayed when God gave her a son:

Hannah prayed and said, “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted up. My mouth boasts over my enemies for I delight in your deliverance. There is no-one holy like the Lord; no-one beside you, there’s no rock like our God. Don’t keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance for the Lord is a God who knows and by Him deeds are weighed. The bows of warriors are broken but those who stumbled are armed with strength.

The prayer goes on and on, you can read it in the book of 1 Samuel chapter 2 and you know what it’s all about; it’s about the power and the sovereignty of God, it’s about a Hannah who went to God with this in her heart, that God is above all things, not to reform God in her own image. Do you know how I know that? Because when she poured out her heart to God, she offered her son back and she honoured that promise.

That’s a challenge for each one of us, about how we go to God. How we see Him, as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords or as some performing puppy that jumps when we say jump. How can we tell the difference? See it’s very hard to discern our hearts sometimes, how can we tell the difference between a right and a wrong attitude towards God? Well lets go back to this 1 Samuel book in chapter 2. We’re going to meet Eli and his sons, the priests:

Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for God. Now it was the practice of the priests with the people that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice to God and while the meat was being boiled, the servant of the priest would come with a 3 pronged fork in his hand. He’d plunge it into the pan or the kettle or the cauldron or the pot and the priest would take for himself whatever the fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

But even before the fat was burned, the servant of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give the priests some meat to roast. He won’t accept boiled meat from you, only the raw stuff.” If the man said to him, “Well let the fat be burned up first and then take whatever you want”, the servant would answer, “No, hand it over now, if you don’t I’ll take it by force.” The sin of the young men was very great in the Lords sight for they were treating the Lords offering with contempt.

See, the way we tell the difference is through how we behave. Hannah could have complained and fought back and acted up badly when she didn’t have a child. She could have lashed out at her husband and grumbled to God yet, in her pain, she went to God humbly and asked Him to bless her and He honoured that.

See, it’s an amazing truth, its one of those pivotal passages in the Bible that tells us a huge amount about why, when we have a wrong heart towards God, things go badly. It’s in 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 30:

For those who honour me, (says God) I will honour and those who despise me, I shall treat with contempt.

And what you read in the remainder of chapter 2, starting at verse 27, is that God deals with Eli and his two sons. He sends a prophet to Eli and this is what happens, the prophet says:

This is what God says, “Didn’t I clearly reveal myself to your father’s house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh? I chose your father, out of all the tribes of Israel, to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod in my presence. I gave your father’s house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites. Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I’ve prescribed for my dwelling?

Why do you honour your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering?” Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel declares: ‘I promise that your house and your fathers house would minister before me forever but now the Lord declares, far be it for me for those who honour me I will honour but those who despise me I will despise. The time is coming when I will cut short the strength and the strength of your father’s house so that there will not be a single old man in your family and you will see the stress in my dwelling.

And then he goes on, this prophet, to say all the horrible things that are going to happen to Eli and his two sons. Even to the point where he says:

This will be a sign to you. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, they will die on the same day and I’ll find myself another priest, I will establish him and his house and he will minister before me and this boy Samuel, ministered the Lord under Eli.

See, there it is; the priests were in a position of power and authority and responsibility and they didn’t honour God. In their words or their deeds they rejected Him and God dealt with them. We’ll have a look at what happens to them next week.

Hannah, on the other hand, well she’s like chalk and cheese when you compare her to Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. Hannah’s this lowly of lowly, the priests are up there on the social religious register and yet that makes no difference to God because He says:

I will honour those who honour me and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt.

What Gods saying here is, “well, if I can’t change the people, I’m going to change the people”, and He did and Eli, Hophni and Phinehas end up dying and young Samuel, Hannah’s boy, this Hannah who honoured God, young Samuel is the one who’s blessed.

You know it’s easy to ignore the invisible God, to just go our own way and then to blame our storms on everyone else but deep down in our hearts we know don’t we? We know that when we front up to God, in humility, the way Hannah did, He honours that; He just does. And when we live our lives like Eli and his sons, well God’s about to show up in our storms and not the way we wanted Him to.

We can ignore Him and deny Him and remonstrate all we like but deep in our hearts we just know that God honours those who honour Him and He despises those who despise Him. Come on people, there is a direct link between how we behave towards God and what happens in our storms. This picture of Hannah in deep distress, going to God, asking for a son in humility is such a beautiful picture.

You see, we feel so weak in those storms don’t we? We feel as though there’s nothing we can do. And God shows us through these stories, it’s not about the position we have or the power we have or how much we get to eat or how well we get rewarded in this world, it’s not about any of those things. It’s about whether or not we bow down and we honour God.

You know, when the storms of life are raging around us, humility is the last thing that comes to mind. But humility, it turns out, is the key to dealing with the storm, in a most unexpected way.

The things that go on deep in our hearts, well sometimes we think, only we know. “No-one really knows what I’m thinking, no-one knows that I hate this person or I envy that person or I lied about this or hid that. No, the things deep in my heart, they’re completely hidden from the rest of the world.”

And yet nothing could be further from the truth because those things in our hearts, well they’re written all over our faces and the rest of the world sees them through what we say and what we do.

Our behaviour betrays our hearts because who we are on the outside comes from who we are on the inside. The two are linked, cause and effect, it’s that simple and even if they weren’t, even if the rest of the world couldn’t read our hearts by watching us and listening to us, there’s at least one other person who knows what’s going on inside.

“God only knows”. How often have you heard that? Well He does, He knows what’s going on in our hearts and it turns out, what’s happening inside, deep inside in our heart means everything to Him.

This week on the program we’re looking at the storms of life. You know when you’re out on an angry ocean, it’s a scary place and a storm hits and your life and my life, you know we can both think of recent storms. Don’t have to think back very far, big ones, little ones and over this week we’ve been taking a look at how two different people, or groups of people, handled their perfect storm.

Hannah was a woman, the wife of Elkanah, one of two wives, the other wife Peninnah had children and Hannah had none and there’s incredible pain in her heart. She goes and takes it to God, have a listen, if you weren’t able to join us earlier in the week. She prays, this is from 1 Samuel chapter 1:

Once they’d finished eating and drinking at Shiloh, Hannah stood up. The priest Eli was sitting on his chair at the doorpost of the Lords temple and in the bitterness of her soul, Hannah wept much and prayed to God and she made a vow saying, “O Lord Almighty, if you would only look upon your servants misery and remember me and don’t forget your servant but give her a son then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life.” Then she went away and ate something and her face was no longer downcast.

You know what I see looking at Hannah, you can probably see it too, I see a humble heart. I see a heart humble enough not to lash out at other people or whinge or complain or act badly. Amidst the bitterness of her soul, the extreme pain, she pours her heart out to God.

Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, priests, turns out they’re bad dudes. I mean the priests are meant to be the religious leaders, they’re meant to be Gods men, the go betweens between God and His people, if anyone should have honoured God in their hearts, it shouldn’t have been Hannah, it should have been them. But instead they slept with prostitutes and they plundered the peoples sacrifices to God and this is what God does. We looked at it briefly yesterday on the program:

A man of God comes to Eli the priest and says to him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Didn’t I bless you? Didn’t I reveal myself to your father’s house? Didn’t I appoint your family as priests? Haven’t I given you everything? Why is it that you scorn my sacrifices and offerings that I’ve prescribed for my temple? Why do you honour your sons more than you honour me by stealing, by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people of Israel’?

Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel declares: ‘I promise you that your house and your father’s house, I promised that you would minister before me forever but now’, the Lord declares, ‘far be it from me because those who honour Me, I will honour but those who despise me I will disdain. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house so that there will be not one old man in your family and you will see distress in My dwelling.

Let me ask you something; who do you think was on solid ground here, Hannah or Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas who pleased themselves? Hannah who was struggling in the midst of her storm and who honoured God or these priests, Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, who just plundered and took what they want and turned their backs on God? See, Hannah with her humble heart or the priests, with all their positions and titles and all that stuff but who wouldn’t know God if they fell over Him.

You know what I reckon; it’s easy to be like Eli, Hophni and Phinehas but it’s hard to be like Hannah. You know why? Because we can’t really see God, not like we can see the physical reality we’re in, not like we can see our circumstances, not like we can see the storm and feel the fear. All those things seem so much more real than this notion of a God that we can’t see; a God that we have to talk to by faith instead of touch and hear physically.

And so this present reality takes over and God has to kind of, I don’t know, fit in with our present reality, if at all. Absolutely, it is so easy to be like Eli, Hophni and Phinehas and just stuff ourselves full and turn our backs on God and forget about honouring God.

It’s easy to relegate God to one of the things that just has to fit into our days agenda but let me tell you something; God is no less real for the fact we can’t physically see Him. He’s no less powerful for the fact that we interact with Him by faith. God is God and solid ground is the place that Hannah knew.

I heard someone say once that peace is trusting in the sovereignty of God, Hannah knew that peace. For that very reason, in the eye of her perfect storm, in that place of taunts and disappointments and pains where she couldn’t even utter the words when she poured her heart out to God, Hannah discovered Gods peace. Just a simple act of faith.

So many times, over these recent years for me, when the storms have blown in, so many times and you know, in a sense you’re so inadequate to deal with those storms. People who come against you and circumstances and the finances and the things that really hurt and the things of real fear and we feel so inadequate.

Just kind of say, “well, I’ll go and pray” but you know what that prayer of faith is, that prayer of anguish and pouring our hearts out before God, it’s honouring Him as the sovereign God above all things, above all powers and dominions and circumstances and storms and listen again to Gods word, 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 30 says:

God says, ‘I will honour those who honour me and those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

Next week we’re going to see how Gods contempt was poured out on Eli, Hophni and Phinehas and how Gods honour was carried out for Hannah through Samuel, her son. Haven’t talked a lot about him this week but we will. We’ll see that next week on the program. See God blesses Samuel and sets him up as the priest and the prophet and the judge over the whole of Israel, Gods blessing flows through him to Hannah, through the generations.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this; when I look at my life, do I look like Hannah or Eli? Cause that’s how we figure out whether I someone who honours God, whether I see Him as the Kings of Kings and the Lord of Lords and sovereign above all things. Whether I go to Him and pour out my heart or whether I steal from Him. Make no mistake; God takes His honour and His glory very seriously – very seriously!

Storms are going to hit our lives from time to time. They just are. And when they do, so often we’re afraid. And that fear, it turns out, can completely immobilise us. So then what?

When we look at what it means to travel with a quiet confidence through the storms of life, as we have been doing this week on the program, well I think we need to stop and take a look at this thing that we call “fear”. Now being afraid is natural, it’s a natural response to danger. Fear is an actual inbuilt, protective mechanism, it stops us from putting ourselves in danger, it protects us as we recoil from danger when it strikes unexpectedly. Now fear has a very important function in our lives but fear also has some pretty big downsides too.

Fear is something that can absolutely immobilise us or it can make us do some silly things and take wrong decisions. And actually, fear is something that whilst we’re equipped to cope with, we’re not designed to live with it 24 X 7. So, if we’re to deal with fear, then we have to learn to travel through the storms of life in a way that actually deals with it. Not just sweeps fear under the carpet, not just ignores it but actually deals with it.

Now that can be something of a challenge; you know it and I know it. So how do we deal with this ‘fear’ thing amidst the storms of life.

If you were with us earlier this week, on Monday I think it was, we had a look at the bunch of seasoned fishermen caught out in a boat, on the water, in the middle of a storm that just came up out of nowhere. Lets take another look at that account, it comes from Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 22:

One day Jesus says to His disciples, “Let’s go to the other side of the lake.” So they got in a boat and set out. As they sailed He fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke Him and said, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown.” Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters and the storm subsided and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” He asked His disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him.

Now, at the time, when we looked at this earlier in the week, I said that there were a few things that these disciples learned about God that day. Firstly they learned that God was in the boat with them. Secondly, that He had both the will and the means of doing the impossible, of calming the storm and saving them from it. And thirdly, the most incongruous thing of all, that safely riding out that storm was a matter of faith.

Now it’s easy to rattle those off, even memorise them and think, “well, here’s my three point plan for dealing with fear the next time I hit a stormy patch.

1. God is with me.
2. He can still the storm.
3. All I have to do is believe.

Hmm, but you know something; it’s not that easy, at least not in my experience. Because this is not something we learn by memorising things on a nice sunny day while we’re sitting by the pool drinking Pina Colada’s. This is something we only really learn in our experience while we’re out there on the ocean.

Here’s what happens to me; I can see the storm clouds brewing off in the distance, they start coming closer, the wind picks up, then the storm front hits and most times I just freeze. A fear stops me from moving forward to do the things that I need to do to save myself, it immobilises me.

Let’s say you’re having financial problems, I was listening to an experienced business consultant who helps small and medium sized businesses in the retail sector and he was talking about managing the business’ finances. Now most business owners, they know they’re having cash flow problems, it worries them sick. So what they do is they just ignore it, they go into denial and their business goes down the drain. Or the sales person who, who’s afraid of making the cold calls or the call to follow up on a call. Fear immobilises them and so that stops them from selling. Fear either makes you want to pull over and stop or streak off completely in the wrong direction.

In fact the words “fear” and “afraid” appear 445 times in the Bible, that’s a lot. Do a search, have a look and you’ll find that’s exactly what happens to people. These seasoned fishermen, what were they doing out in the storm? They were cowering in the boat, they were screaming out to God, “God, wake up!” See how stupid that is, “God, God wake up! Jesus, Jesus wake up! We’re going to perish!” Jesus is in that boat with them, all His glories laid aside He’s a man just like them, just like you and me and what does Jesus do, does He get panicked, does He get immobilised? Have a look:

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters. The storm subsided and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” He asked the disciples.

You see what is says first up, it says, “He got up”. God is a God of action, He doesn’t just sit there, He does stuff and then, then He rebukes them for their lack of faith. Now that might seem a bit harsh but look at it from His perspective, He’s the Son of God, He knew the right thing to do, it was blindingly, glimpsingly obvious to Him but it was foreign to them.

In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him.

See the bottom line is that trusting God in the storm is so utterly unnatural to us. It’s a bit like the gymnast; he has to learn manoeuvres that are completely unnatural, almost supernatural when you watch them sometimes. I particularly like the guys who get on those rings, you know they get up and they do all those things on those rings, I think ‘my goodness, how do they do that?’ ‘Cause I have to tell you, I can’t do that.

They don’t learn those things sitting on the couch memorising three dot points, they learn them in the gym, the hard way, they fall off, they hurt themselves, they get up, they do it again, they fall over, they hurt themselves, they get up, they do it again until eventually, they can do things that are impossible to you and to me and that’s how we learn to cope with fear in the middle of those storms.

Each time I go through one and I do, I go through them just like you do, I experience fear each time and I’m not some “scaredy cat” but that’s just life. And what I’ve learnt is to go to God early, to pour my heart out to Him like Hannah whom we looked at during the course of this week on the program, if you were with us earlier this week, and what He does when I do that, is He gives me peace. And I’ve had to learn that over and over and over again and I’m still learning it and sometimes that peace comes sooner and sometimes that peace comes later but it always comes.

I would never have learned that sitting by the pool, only out in the sea amidst the storm and then, when I have that peace, the fear that once immobilised me, the fear that stopped me, is gone. I can get on, I can do my bit, I can do the practical things, I can deal with the finances, I can make the calls, I can manage the problems and wait expectantly for God to show up and do His bit, for God to show up and calm the storm, for God to show up and do the things that I simply can’t do.