The Lord of storms

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TODAY’S SPECIAL: Psalm 29:1-11

TO CHEW ON: “The LORD sits enthroned at the Flood,
And the LORD sits as King forever.
The LORD will give strength to His people;
The LORD will bless His people with peace.” Psalm 29:10,11

In Psalm 29 God is pictured as a storm-bringer. There is noise: “thunder” and a powerful “voice.” There is destruction: the storm “breaks the cedars” and makes them “skip.” It “shakes the wilderness” and even causes the deer to give birth prematurely.

The writer of my Bible’s notes says about this passage:

“Poetically the psalmist refers to an earthquake or thunderous quake in the Lebanon mountain range and at Sirion (Mt. Herman) which splinters the biggest trees, the mighty cedars, as if they were matchsticks” - K.R. Iverson, New Spirit-Filled Life Bible, p. 707.

What interests me about this storm, though, is the way the psalmist (David) sees God through it. He sees God not as pagan peoples did—a deity who needed to be placated to stop the storm (Jonah 1:4,5,6)—but as lord over it, commanding it.

We can conclude David trusted God, even His stormy side, because of the way he ended this psalm:

“The LORD will give strength to His people.
The LORD will bless His people with peace” - Psalm 29:11.

I ask myself can I, can we learn to trust God in storms—the physical and the circumstantial—like that? Do we still believe in Him, in His love, righteousness, and justice toward us when the house is torn apart in a hurricane or when our lives are torn apart by cancer, a stroke, or heart attack? It’s easy to proclaim to someone else: “The Lord will give you strength and peace.”  But how does one actually experience it?

Perhaps one way is to prepare to trust Him in big storms by building our trust muscles now, as we exercise them in the little storms we face each day.

PRAYER: Dear Father, these sentiments—God will give you strength and peace—are easy to speak when I’m in the calm. Help me to grow in trust as I lean on You daily in the small storms that come my way. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.