In the two months since that trip, I've found myself in another stressful stretch of road, so to speak. As Adam and I prepared for our move here to Canada, I became progressively more anxious about the storm clouds that I perceived were looming above us ominously. We were quitting our jobs, stepping down from the youth group we had become very attached to, saying goodbye to friends we love dearly, packing up our life, and leaving everything that we knew and that was familiar to us. For quite a while, I lost sight of our goal (The road, shall we say?) because I focused so hard on the darkening clouds.
It's amazing how prone I am to that; no matter how many storms God has brought me through. God pulls me through the storm, and then I turn around, see how He's changed me through it, and go, "Wow. what a beautiful storm that was".
And then I do it all over again.
The clouds start to darken and I can't tear my focus away from them. I forget the God who has continued to walk me through storm after storm. He's the God who makes flowers bloom up through the rocks and gravel. He's the God who grows us through the most adverse of circumstances.Habakkuk 3:17 describes what sounds like an incredible and powerful storm. It's talks about the trees being unable to blossom, harvest failing, no livestock owned, and many other hardships. Basically, no physical needs had any hopes of being met. I don't know about you, but I'we never been in a storm that bad. So what's Habakkuk's response? Is it to look at the storm and cry out in hopelessness? Is it to turn his back on God and reject Him because of the impossibility of the circumstances? No, not at all. Instead, he looks at the One he knows will bring him through the storm. He says he will find joy in the God of his salvation. He trusts the Lord to be his strength and to bring him through.
Oh that my response could be like Habakkuk's! When clouds start to loom, oh that I could say, "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD"! But that's the cool things about God and His graciousness; I'll have another chance... and another... and another. He doesn't consider me a lost cause or a failure just because I failed to see Him during my most recent storm.
The clouds from this transition haven't quite cleared, but the thunder and lightning have definitely slowed, and I'm starting to see the beauty of the storm. God brought me through, as He always has, and I pray that in life's next storm, my response will be the same as that of Habakkuk, "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD".
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. LORD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”
Habakkuk 3:17-19
