Calm in the storm

The grey naval vessel plunged up and down in the huge waves. The storm had been raging for hours; making life uncomfortable on the Australian naval vessel. The Naval Chaplain became interested in a group of sailors pointing to an object floating on one of the huge waves.

 

 'What was it?' It was white and it did not appear to be a piece of driftwood. It was difficult to make out the shape. The pounding rain hampered their vision of the object. The ship's course brought them slowly closer. Using binoculars, the sailors gradually made out a white, limp mass being tossed about in the waves.

 As the ship drew closer it began to dawn on them that the object was a large bird. It was a large white albatross! It was not dead! Instead of trying to fight the fury of the storm, it had bypassed its natural instinct to try and fly away and it had simply landed on the water and floated on top until the storm abated. Even though it was being tossed about in the huge seas, it did not waste its energies trying to fight the storm. The albatross was calm in the storm and waited for the storm to pass. It just went up and down with the waves; but the waves did not defeat it. It used the waves as a safe haven.

 What a lesson for you and me. How often do we fight against the circumstances in our lives? How often do we try repeatedly to fix the problems even when the solutions are beyond our control? How often do we place a problem in the Lord's hands; and then decide to tell the Lord how to fix the problem? Why bother Him in the first place? Often He does not deliver us out of the problem; instead He will see us safely through the problem.

 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation [trial or testing] has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."  Some trials are long and grievous. Our faith is tested at these times.

 I have often been encouraged by an incident I heard of a brother in Christ back in the Great Depression in the 1930's on a farm in western New South Wales, Australia. The situation for him and his family was bleak. His farm was going bankrupt; he had no money and little food. It looked like he would have to pack up his family and leave their farm as he could not afford to keep it. Even though he was a stout believer in Christ the situation looked hopeless.

 Then one day shortly after his telephone rang. He picked it up to answer it; instead a confident male voice said "Ebenezer 7" The man had given him his own telephone number instead of checking that the number he was calling was correct. The farmer was startled by this name and number. He recalled the incident in 1 Samuel chapter 7 where God using the prophet Samuel helped Israel win a major victory over the Philistines.

 1 Samuel 7:4-13, "4 So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.5 And Samuel said, "Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you."6 So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water, and poured it out before the Lord. And they fasted that day, and said there, "We have sinned against the Lord." And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpah.7 Now when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines.8 So the children of Israel said to Samuel, "Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines." 9 And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.10 Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day, and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel.11 And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and drove them back as far as below Beth Car.12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." 13 So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel."

 Ebenezer literally means 'The stone of help'. As the farmer remembered this he took heart and strengthened his faith in God. The number 7 was significant for him as well; because the number 7 means complete, perfect or mature in Scripture. The outcome for this farmer was that the Lord did indeed help him through his trials and his future financial outcome was good. What the man actually rang the farmer for I did not get to hear about. The great encouragement that the farmer got from the two words 'Ebenezer 7' was the crux of this incident.

 When the farmer, like the albatross, gave up trying to get out of a situation beyond his control he was strengthened in his faith and had calmness in his soul. The circumstances did not defeat him. Neither did the albatross let its circumstances defeat it. The Lord Jesus spoke to the wind and waves in Mark 4:39; "Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." The presence and power of the Lord Jesus Christ can change any circumstance.

 

Jon Peasey

Biblical Perspectives blog www.jon-peasey.blogspot.com

Ebooks author page https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JRPeasey

 [All Scriptures quoted are from the New King James version; unless otherwise noted. Words enclosed in [ ] are inserted for clarity. Words in bold type emphasise a point. You may notice some verses are quoted with ... at the beginning, ending or elsewhere in a verse. Only the relevant part or parts of the verse, that relate directly to the current subject matter is quoted.]

 [If you have any questions or comments you are invited to contact me via the comments section below.]

 

 

 

 

  

 

In Him we live and move and have our being

This is a remarkable statement! This statement is found in Acts 17:28 and is a quotation from a Cretan poet Epimenides. Therefore, it is even more remarkable that the apostle Paul uses this quotation to affirm the truth of what Epimenides said.

 Let's look at the context of what the apostle Paul was declaring in Acts 17:16-31.

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.

18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean."

21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;

23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

25 Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for [touch] Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'

29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.

30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,

31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

So let's have a closer look at our title.

For in Him - That is in the Creator God.

We live and move - As created beings we live and move because that's what we were created to do.

And have our being - We exist because the Creator God brought us into being.

Therefore we exist because the Creator God brought us into being through the natural, human reproductive process. He blessed Adam and Eve with offspring; and their offspring were blessed by God with offspring of their own. That process has been going on from generation to generation until the present time. Without the Creator God we could not even take our next breath.

Daniel 5:23

"23 And you [Belshazzar] have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified."

Daniel 5:30-31

30 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain.

31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

We move because the Creator God gives us the ability to move, to think, to breathe, to love and to do all the things we need to accomplish in our lives here on Planet Earth. We tend to think we are masters and mistresses of our own lives; but the true and living God holds our breath in his hands. This reveals the frailty of our mortality.

Let's see what James says in his epistle.

James 4:13-17

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit";

14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."

16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

We live in a Space/Matter/Time universe created by the infinite, eternal God who made man in His own image. Gen 1:26, "26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

Man lives in a Space/Matter/Time universe. Yet, man with his human spirit is capable of knowing God. With his human soul he has self realisation and recognises himself. With his human body through his senses (taste, touch, seeing, hearing and smelling) he recognises and interacts with the world around him.

Ezekiel 18:4, "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die." Therefore we are accountable to the true and living God for all our thoughts and actions. For in Him we live and move and have our being.

 

Jon Peasey

Biblical Perspectives blog www.jon-peasey.blogspot.com

Ebooks author page https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JRPeasey

[All Scriptures quoted are from the New King James version; unless otherwise noted. Words enclosed in [ ] are inserted for clarity. Words in bold type emphasise a point. You may notice some verses are quoted with ... at the beginning, ending or elsewhere in a verse. Only the relevant part or parts of the verse, that relate directly to the current subject matter is quoted.]