Head into the Eye of the Storm

As I am reading through the Bible in a year, I find myself at the end of Jesus’ life on earth. He is headed toward a great storm in his life. He is about to be brutally beaten and hung on a cross, and, he knows the storm is coming.

Although we fight to protect and control every aspect of our lives, our kid’s lives, and our future journey, deep down we all know that storms are coming in our lives as well. The unforecasted, unpredictable twists and turns of our journey will happen. Adrian Rogers said that we are either “in a storm, headed to a storm, or coming out of a storm” at any point in our lives. It is inevitable.

Since this is true, when we look around, we see all kind of storms in people’s lives. We tend to dodge the rain so that our clothes don’t get wet. We may offer prayer, but we don’t head into the eye of the storm.

Jesus implores us to head into the eye of the storm.

A few days before his brutal death, the message of Jesus to the world was to serve others in the midst of their storms. In Matthew 25, days before his death, Jesus gave a picture of those that helped in the middle of storms. They gave food to the poor, quenched the thirst of the thirsty, invited strangers in, clothed the less fortunate, visited the sick, and visited those in prison. Those storms are all around us today.

Additionally, 2 days before his death, we see Jesus reclining at the table with Simon the Leper. Think a leper in that day was in the middle of a storm? There was no cure for the disease, which gradually left a person disfigured through loss of fingers, toes and eventually limbs. Jesus is having dinner at his house.

Also at the dinner, we see Lazarus and Mary. Earlier in the story, we saw Mary come to Jesus weeping at the death of her brother, Lazarus. Jesus jumped in the middle of their storm, bringing Lazarus back to life.

The point is that the life of Christ was a life lived in the middle of other’s storms. His entire walk on earth was about others. And, as we find him headed to the greatest storm of his life, he was in the middle of other’s storms, helping them fight the battle.

This week, I am willing to bet we will see a storm, an interruption, in another’s life. I encourage us all to see these storms as an opportunity to serve, to help, to jump in the middle of the rain. Head into the eye. After all, our storm is coming, too.

Impact others. Live generously.

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