Praising God In The Storm

You would probably have realised the new blog song which I have put up here. Its called "Praise You In This Storm" by Casting Crowns. All of us face storms in our life at one time or another. The storms can be big storms, or just small storms, but they all make life difficult for us. Why do we have storms in our life? Why does God allow these storms to come into our lives? Well, in the 1st place, no one, not even Jesus said that life would be easy. Life isn't easy, thats for sure. But another thing that we can be sure about is that God would be walking through it with us.
Its very easy to praise God for the things He has done for us when everything is sunny and fine, when things just seem to be perfect. Its easy to praise God when we are not facing any storms in our life. But what about when we are facing the storms in our lives? Do we praise God in this storm? Yes of course, thats because when God allows a storm to come into our life, He has a reason for it, and He will either calm the storm for us, or He will just ride through it with us. God will never leave us in the storm. Thats why even in the storm, we will praise God, because we know that He is with us.
There are 2 main reasons why God puts a storm in our life.
One reason is to change our stubborn thinking and mindsets, so that we can walk in His direction. This can be seen in the example of Jonah. You see, Jonah was running away from God's calling of going to Nineveh to preach. He got onto a ship and then faced a violent storm. Well, its a long story, but eventually Jonah was thrown overboard the ship into the sea as he is identified by the sailors for causing the storm as he has incurred God'd wrath. But well, that was not the end of Jonah. In Jonah 1:17, it says "But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights." Isn't this wonderful? God did not let Jonah die in the storm. God was riding with Jonah through the storm, sending a big fish to help Jonah keep alive in the storm! Well, to cut the story short, after spending the time in the fish stomach, Jonah finally soften his heart to God's calling and went to Nineveh to preach against it, thus saving the entire city from God's judgment. You see, this storm that God puts Jonah through was obviously aimed at softening Jonah's stubborness against the calling of God. Aren't we like Jonah sometimes, refusing to listen to the will of God and thus facing a storm that God put in our life? I myself admit to this. But do not be disheartened, God put this storm in our life only for our own good, and He will ride through it with us.

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Another reason why God puts a storm in our life is to make us depend on His power. Many a times, when we are so blessed and have lived a sunny life for too long, we get a little complacent and forgot God's blessing upon our life. We will tend to feel that we do not need God in our life anymore. When this happen, God will put a storm in our life to remind us that we still need to depend on Him as we are not as great we think we are. In Mark 4:35~41, we see that Jesus and his disciples were in a boat when a storm caught them. At that point of time, Jesus was still asleep. So the storm was really violent and the disciples got scared. So they woke Jesus up and Jesus rebuked the winds, calming the storm in the end. After that, the disciples were rebuked for having no faith because they were afraid. In this case, the storm was calmed. All that was intended was for the disciples to learn that they had to depend on Jesus and for them to realise their own state of faithlessness. I believe that before this, the disciples were probably thinking that they were mighty and strong in their faith. The storm made them realise their weakness and made them lean onto Jesus for help. This is true in our lives as well. Sometimes we will face storms in our life to make us realise that we are not as great as we thought we are and we eventually still need to go back to God for His strength and protection. But we do not have to fret, because God is in control all along and the storm will eventually be calmed.

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Therefore, we should praise God even in the storm. Reason being in the fact that God puts these storms in our lives only for our own good, to make us learn, and that He is always looking after us, either by riding through the storm with us or by calming the storm in the end.
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