Music is a wonderful gift. I greatly admire those who can put words together and combine them with music to communicate a message. This afternoon we've been able to listen to some music while we've been catching up on some of the "office work" that is important, but often neglected. We've been listening to a Brian Doerksen album and discovered a song entitled "Lost and Found." I enjoy the style, but really got caught by some of the words:
"Jesus, don't you keep me from that storm.
I want to walk that sacred ground.
For you are Master of it all,
And I am but a lost and found."
I'm not sure if that's a prayer that I'm ready to pray. Over the years I've heard, as have most of you who read this, of the "dark night of the soul," or the "fellowship of sharing in his suffering." There is a "school of suffering" that believers have endured throughout the generations. How often have we prayed to avoid the trials, to be delivered from difficult situations, or the "times that try the hearts of men?" How many times have we prayed ourselves right out of perhaps the most significant discoveries of our lives when we've asked for deliverance from difficulties, trials or tribulations rather than allowing God to finish the work He's doing?
No, I don't think we ought to look for trouble or trials. But, I have come to believe that it is part of God's plan to use those very things for building up our souls and our character. There are things learned through the storm that are never learned any other way. There is a sacredness that accompanies the period of trial believers experience. That indicates that we don't walk through that period alone. He is with us. It is His presence that makes it sacred.
Jerry Sitser of Whitworth College wrote a book, A Grace Disguised, about his family's tragedy that claimed the lives of his mother, wife and daughter. He described the grief coming as the darkness of night from the East. He went on to picture the sun setting in the West and longing to run to the light – darkness was coming. Yet, as we all know, we can't catch the sun. The quickest way to the sun is through the darkness to the dawn.
I'm not anxious to enter a storm, nor am I averse to avoiding one. (I'm a little skeptical of those who look for trouble.) When the Father determines that it's time for a storm in my life I have to trust Him. If I believe the third line, "You are Master of it all," then I can trust Him when He allows me to enter the storm. He is the One who will keep me in it – and through it. Amen.
