Trusting God In The Storm

A man and his dog standing by the beach during a storm.

Photo by Janaka Sampath

We all know what it feels like to get caught in a storm. Regardless of where you live, it’s never a good experience and can be damaging and traumatic. The storm always brings loss and tragedy. Let’s learn how to trust God even while you’re hit with the storms of life.

It’s always terrifying to witness floodwater rising to the point of drowning, not to mention the debris and possible diseases carried by the dirty water, which can infect anyone injured. The effort to survive through it all is draining enough for a person, leaving them breathless amid the raw brutality.

Our struggles are similar to natural storms that come and go. That doesn’t mean it’s not any less complicated and scary. Those moments where we don’t know where to seek help are the worst. That is also when we need to seek God and be under his care because He’s the only one with the power to protect us from the storm. We must decide whether to rely on God or our pride to get through anything on our own.

 

Where Is God When We Need Him?

Everyone going through stormy weather in this life would mostly feel like they are alone, and it seems like no one cares. Despite the circumstances surrounding us, the light always comes after the dark. Hanging by a thread may not feel great, but God is the rope we can hold on to.

  • With Him, you won’t be lost.
  • You are safe in the palm of His hand even when the storms come crashing.
  • He already saw the battery before it reached your life.
  • God has provided everything you need even before you ask.
  • Nothing can take you away from the hand of God.

If you still don’t feel confident in God’s mercy and love, try reading the book “God Cares, But Do We?” by Kwaku Mensah. It contains eye-opening words that reassure your once declining faith in God. Our fiery faith can be instantly snuffed out by the strong winds of trials and struggles, so we must bring back that spark.

 

The Impossible Task Of Trusting

When storms arrive and destroy everything in their path, it can be impossible to trust the Lord’s protection and provision for a moment. It’s hard to see through the wind and water. That’s why endurance is the way people cope without certainty. We all have our fair share of disasters that make us sob our hearts out on the pillow. Asking God why this is happening is normal, and like the cliché saying goes, everything happens for a reason. And that reason will be revealed by God in time if we choose to remain in Him.

The bigger the storm, the better the Lord can show His grace, mercy, and love. A soul battered by too many challenges will stand tall in the face of tragedy. It’s necessary to go through all that and be stripped away of all the things we relied on so that we can only hold onto God and His promises because He never fails; he always comes through.

 

What You Should Do To Trust The Lord

Sometimes, the thought of God being in the middle of it still won’t encourage your heart to put absolute trust in His power, which is fine. You can take these words of advice and recall them when doubt creeps into your soul.

  • Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable in front of God. He knows your struggles and the turmoil you’re in, and He’s just waiting for you to voice it out for Him to hear. Feeling emotions like hurt, sadness, anger, and bitterness is acceptable. It’s also okay to ask God why inevitable storms crashed into your life.
  • God hears every plea in prayer, and He answers all of them in due time. He may not always give it right away or whenever we want to, and the way we want it. But He always does.
  • Go pick up your Bible and spend time meditating on His word. The Bible contains many promises and words of encouragement.
  • Surrender it all to Him. Things won’t always go your way, and moments are beyond anyone’s control. The best thing to do is hand everything over to God; He’ll do the rest.
  • Even if you don’t feel Him at all times, continue to seek Him, pray without ceasing, and connect with Him.

Knowing Yourself Is the Beginning of All Wisdom

man wearing stripes on a green field

 

 “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu.

The essential highlight of our lives is uncovering who we are. Yet, so many of us wander around either not genuinely understanding or hearing a horrid inner pundit that gives us all the erroneous thoughts about ourselves. 

We erroneously consider self-understanding as self-indulgence, and we move on without questioning the most crucial question we’ll ever ask: Who am I truly? As Mary Oliver said, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

Uncovering yourself may communicate like a naturally self-centered dream, but it is a munificent method at the root of everything we accomplish. 

To be the considerable valuable person to the world around us, the best counterpart, parent, etc., we must first comprehend who we are, what we cherish, adore, and, in turn, what we have to contribute. This intimate journey is every person will satisfy with taking.

 It is a method that affects breaking down: alleviating coatings that do not help us in our lives and don’t mirror who we are. Yet, it also implicates a monumental act of constructing up – acknowledging who we want to be and passionately going about fulfilling our destinies – whatever that may be.

 It’s a topic of acknowledging our capability yet being sincere and powerless in our adventures. It isn’t something to worry about or dodge, castigating ourselves along the path, but instead something to strive out with inquisitiveness and understanding. With these tenets in mind, the following guides emphasize the most universally practical actions for this unique experience.

Make significance of your past.

To uncover who we are and why we act the way we do, we must learn our own story. Being fearless and willing to examine our past is a vital stepping stone on the road to comprehending ourselves and evolving who we want to be. A study has shown that it isn’t just the things that occurred to us that determine who we become, but how much we’ve made sense of what’s ensued.

 A happy and better life starts with you. But if you don’t know to look at yourself in the mirror — or refuse to — then you haven’t done the foundational work necessary to start designing the life you want. This is what Kwaku Mensah, the author of the book God Cares, But Do We? is trying to tell us. The book emphasizes how beneficial self-knowledge is and why it is the first and main ingredient in leading the life you want.

Knowing yourself lets you live the life you truly want — you know who you are, what you want, and what brings out the best. If you don’t completely understand who you are, you will continue to make decisions against your true self.

Talking about the past and reflecting on it.

 

By reflecting on his past, Kwaku Mensah made sense of the things that connect his love of language and faith in God. This is how the most challenging moments of our lives can become possibilities to deepen our self-understanding and our associations with others if we have the feeling of love towards everything in the world. 

 

By gripping in this type of thought and being ready to face the remembering, we gain an invaluable understanding of our demeanor. We can then start to deliberately disconnect from the more dangerous consequences of our past and busily change our manners to mirror how we assume and probe and how we desire to be in the world.

 

The relationship with yourself is one of the most crucial relationships in your life. The big idea here is to change your life for good and live life on your terms, and you first need to know who you are so that in that way, you can honestly know your purpose in life and why you are striving every day. 

 

On the Process of Losing Faith

On the Process of Losing Faith banner

Despite what most of us believe, and as much as we hate to admit it, our faith, no matter how strong, will bow down if there is a force strong enough to do so.


It doesn’t even have to be a single force. In fact, it is very rare for a singular force to break our belief system. Rather, it is the small aggressions that chip away at our faith. When compounded, they might become forces our belief system could not withstand.

 

Then we lose our faith. Our whole belief system is turned into one big mess, and we are confused about what to do and where to hold on to. Sometimes this loss in faith can be so profound that some of us will also experience a loss in direction or even disillusionment. Many will do things that they wouldn’t have thought they would do or do something that they are sure to regret. Such a catastrophic experience will often lead to depression, loneliness, or anger. One could even say that losing faith is almost precisely the same as a breakup or a death of a loved one.

 

In God Cares, But Do We? book on find your faith by Kwaku Mensah, there is a part that details how people can learn from their mistakes and understand life better. This loss of faith can be one of those challenges. In such challenges, how we adapt to our new situation will be vital in finding out our identity. It makes us see the world with fresher eyes; with some distance, we can see and learn from our mistakes.

 

Then we realize that the loss of faith does not necessarily mean losing it forever. Instead, it is a chance for our beliefs to evolve or mature. It is a chance for a mature reappraisal of our faith. It is also a chance to reevaluate our faith with a more realistic standard.

 

Sure, it is complicated to reconcile our belief in a loving all-merciful, and all-powerful God when we have just suffered a tragedy that can be life-altering. In such situations, it is very easy to let go and walk away from everything we believe in.

 

Even then, that choice would be the wrong one to make. Just as in a breakup, where it is not advisable to find a rebound partner when the event is still fresh, it is also very in times of weaker or loosening faith to find another belief system and to try and carry on with life. This approach is not advisable. Instead, it would be much better to give yourself time to think things through and take stock of everything that has happened so far.

 

Self-reflection is the name of the game whenever these things happen. With proper self-reflection comes change. Most of the time, the person who comes out from this change is more capable than before. He might be capable of building stronger foundations that can last a lifetime.

 

So how do we cope with the loss of our faith?

 

Well, the first thing to do is to do the usual of acknowledging what happened. This acknowledgment that something is wrong should always be the first step. Patience is key when figuring things out, especially when uncertainty hangs over the head for such sudden disbelief in the things you once believed in.

 

Allow yourself to grieve. It might sound weird, but what you are experiencing right now is similar to losing someone close to you. In fact, you can even consider that it is something worse than that. It is the loss of self, a loss of personality. One can compare it to a part of you dying. And it is for this very reason that you should allow yourself to grieve, including the significant stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

 

Sharing your thoughts can also help alleviate the pain that you are suffering. However, sharing your idea with not just anybody but with the right person is essential. Talk to someone compassionate and trustworthy. Most of all, talk to someone who is willing to listen and does not impose their own beliefs on you.

 

The loss of faith is nothing new. Thousands of people experience this dilemma every day. This doesn’t mean that your situation is relevant. In fact, it is the opposite. It means that you are one of the brave people who are undergoing a considerable challenge that may have a very profound impact on their lives. It is important to know that you are not alone in this fight.

Being Our Brother’s Keeper to Honor God’s Love

Brother's keeper banner

After Adam and Eve, the Holy Bible talks about two more people in Genesis. These people are their children, Cain and Abel, and their tragic tale is known to everybody. Cain, the older brother, is a farmer who tills the land. Meanwhile, the younger brother, Abel, is a shepherd who guards his flock. Both of them were asked by God to offer the fruits of their labor to him. However, God only accepted Abel’s tribute and not Cain’s. This led to jealousy in Cain’s heart, and because of this, he did the unthinkable. He took stone to Abel’s head and killed his brother. Upon the deed being done, God asked Cain where his brother was, to which he replied, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” He was not, and ironically, those words he uttered came to mean that we are indeed responsible for the welfare of our brothers.

“Am I my Brother’s Keeper?” these words spoken by Cain before his banishment and punishment by God are now one of our defining missions on earth. God created us in His likeness, and despite our imperfections, he still loves us. The selfless love on God Cares book by Kwaku Mensah is precisely this kind of love. In that book that talks about God’s love, we should ask ourselves, “Are we deserving of God’s love?” “How can we honor that love?” and “How do we become our brother’s keeper?” Isn’t it ironic that the Father Himself does not discriminate between the sinners and the saint, and yet we, His children, not only are selective of who we love, but we even choose to deprive others of this love? Or is it exactly our being human that limits our ability to love each and everyone like the Holy Father does?

Being Our Brother’s Keeper

It would be a shame if we let our limitations stop us from fulfilling God’s given mission to us. It might be a worthwhile endeavor, after all, to try our hand at fulfilling this specific mission. There should be a reason why God bestowed this mission to us. But how do we start?

Respect

 Respecting the existence of one another might be an excellent place to start in fulfilling this mission. With respect, we begin to create an understanding with one another. Sure, we may be separated by many things; race, creed, faith, and beliefs, but it does not mean that we cannot get along. By respecting one another, we allow an avenue for a conversation. Once we follow through with this conversation, we begin to see that despite these differences, we are more likely the same. We start to learn that we all share the same human experience. We can finally understand the true meaning of “being created in the image and likeness of God.”

Love

Love will grow once we begin to understand and respect each other. Of course, this does not mean romantic love but brotherly love. This is the kind of love where we preserve and grow the respect that we have for each other. This is also about honoring one another and not breaking that mutual respect. Thus, we must devote ourselves to the honor of care of our brothers. That means being able to talk to one another and understanding where each of us is coming from. Being able to share stories, jokes, or even a meal with one another is also a way to show this brotherly (or sisterly) love.

This love, however, must come from the right place. It must be genuine; otherwise, it will bear no fruit. If this love does not have a strong enough foundation, it will crumble at the slightest squabbles. As such, this love must be genuine, humble, and sympathetic.

Service

To serve your brother is to be there for them whenever they need you. To maintain and fulfill our oath of being our brother’s keepers, we must constantly look out for each other. This is already covered in love; thus, love and service are intrinsically linked with each other. After all, we cannot maintain our love if we cannot help each other. We also cannot openly and genuinely serve if our service does not come from a place of love.

Being our brother’s keeper is one way of honoring God and showing our gratitude for the love he has granted us. We must remember that God created us in His image and likeness. We must also remember that inside us dwells the Holy Spirit. As such, being our brother’s keeper is also being in service to God and glorifying him.

 

How (Not) To Stay Lukewarm

person praying

It is so better for Christians to be either genuine (hot) or refreshing (cold) rather than be “lukewarm.” The point of this essential biblical truth resonates even today. God does not want His children to be “lukewarm” Christians.

 

Many thought they were Christians for years and swore they had a relationship with God. They even believed they could die at any moment and be welcomed into heaven.

Guess what? They were not. They did not. They would not.

 

What The Scripture Says 

The Scriptures hold a revealing account of a church that made God disappointed. Revelation 3:11-22 describes the Laodicean church with this serious charge, “…I wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

Logically, readers of this passage would conclude that being “hot” spiritually is understandable and even desired. At face value, this passage also implies that it was acceptable to be “cold” spiritually — a term that could mean lifeless, even dead.

But the Lord was not telling them that it was okay to be “cold” spiritually. Jesus is not implying that He wishes they were either spiritually cold or spiritually hot rather than being spiritually lukewarm.

The people of Laodicea understood precisely what the Lord was saying.  

 

How To Stay Lukewarm

Comparing your faith with others around you (including non-Christians) is the easiest way, as C.S. Lewis says, to travel down the gentle slope into hell.

THE DOWNWARD GLANCE.  This downward glance is when you look down on those who were “lesser” Christians to confirm your complacency. Your assurance of salvation largely came from the fact that you were outwardly better than many other goats who claimed to be sheep.

THE UPWARD GLANCE.  This upward glance is when you would come across genuine believers, you would feel moments of deep conviction. But to stay lukewarm, you concluded that these were Christian all-stars.  

Where You Did Not Glance: the Bible.  When you are lukewarm, God’s book collects dust in your room, unopened. Then God leads you to His word and saves you. God met a miserable person making him alive through His Spirit and His word. The lukewarm Churchianity was consumed by a living faith in the consuming God of the Bible.

 

Christ’s Solution To Being Lukewarm

Readers can find a practical and vital solution intertwined throughout the nine verses in this Laodicean church description in Revelations 3:14-22. This passage also holds one of the most familiar verses in all of the Bible, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

The meaning of these verses makes it clear that this is not a plea to unbelievers. The Lord God here is not asking those who have not put their trust and faith in Christ to open their hearts and accept Him as their Lord and personal Savior.

These people were already church members who were already a part of God’s family. Their problem here was not that they were not saved; they were “lukewarm” Christians — and were going through the motions of their halfhearted faith.

Christ asks His people to open their hearts to a consistent and genuine journey with Him. He wants His children to willingly enjoy a deeper fellowship with Him that can be genuine and reviving. He wants true believers to listen to Him and follow His lead. He wants His people to enthusiastically and willingly serve Him with sincere hearts.

The Lord God asks His followers in this church to make their faith trustworthy and honest and to be wholehearted and genuine followers of Christ. He asks them to give up their lives by going through the motions spiritually.

That is why He instructs them to “repent” — to understand that their lives of playing games spiritually must end. He is looking for “zealous” or committed followers who are vibrant and refreshing servants of the Highest God.

Final Words

Lukewarm Christians indeed make God sick.  Mensah’s book about spirituality emphasized that God cares for humanity. The question is, does humanity care for God? It is time for all Christ-followers to be committed to serving Him. If you are lukewarm and reading this, there is excellent news: There is still time. Repent. Believe. Rejoice. Live.

 

Being Kind To Yourself is Being Kind To Others

people holding hands

People have seemed to reach the generation where it’s easier to “cancel” someone and hop onto someone’s hate train in a snap than trying to understand them and the situation. It seems as though the world has entered a time where the art of empathy is lost.

People have lost the ability to share the feelings of another. They have reached the time when it has gotten difficult to understand and put oneself in another’s shoes and learn to see the situation through their perspective. However, the problem isn’t hopeless. It’s been said that empathy can be learned and that people can learn to be empathetic even to those they barely know.

But how? – Kindness.

Kindness is an essential factor in empathy. When people are kind, they can better pay attention and understand someone’s experience and emotions. Hence, to be more empathic, one needs to be kind. But why is there a need for people to be empathic or kind to others? There are many reasons to do so, but the most apparent reason is that it makes the world a better place to live in, not just for others but for oneself. According to author Kwaku Mensah, the root of all suffering is the mistreatment of men and women by their fellow men.

The best thing to do to be kinder to others is to be kinder to oneself first. When people aren’t kind to themselves, it’s easy to displace anger or any negative emotion they’re feeling toward others. This results in their unpleasant way of socially reacting to situations with others. Let’s consider some of the ways to avoid this.

Being easy to yourself

People say, “you are your worst critic and enemy.” People are the hardest on themselves. They expect the best from themselves and will typically constantly nit-pick their hard work. While doing so, they rarely show any appreciation or praise for their work despite doing their best.

People should learn to stop trying to be perfect because while they may not know or notice it about themselves, they are already perfect in their ways. Additionally, being easy on themselves means they need to find the sweet spot between striving and acceptance. Learn to discover and accept ceilings – their limits, the point where they’ve already done their best. Likewise, despite learning to accept limitations, they shouldn’t limit themselves and settle, especially if they know they can still do better. While accepting where their limits are, people should still strive to grow as individuals continuously.

Treating yourself

Nothing can soothe and uplift one’s spirits better than a good treat. Let’s face it, spending can be abused and can lead to highly destructive behavior. But if done correctly, spending a little on oneself can become the best self-care. After achieving something, people who buy things for themselves appreciate themselves and acknowledge their hard work.

Reminding yourself of your good qualities

In line with being their worst critic, when people look at themselves, it can be pretty easy to highlight the things they dislike about themselves rather than the great things they have. People should learn to lift themselves – rather than depending on someone for validation. It’s best if they do it to themselves first. It’s common sense that everyone is unique, and while it can be easy to feel insecure or a little jealous about others – and it’s completely valid to feel that way – one should learn to believe that they are enough in their way. 

Respecting yourself

Now that people have learned to remind themselves of how great they are, they should learn not to let others dictate their worth. Instead, they need to trust themselves and make their own decisions. They should refuse to compare themselves to others and learn to respect and know their values. This means they need to be true to themselves and their identity – prioritize themselves and what makes them happy. People should listen less to what people say about them in line with knowing their worth. Most of the time, they get discouraged about what makes them happy because others tell them so. “You shouldn’t do that,” or, “Why are you like that” – these sentiments should be ignored, and people should only work on figuring themselves out.

Learning to say no

When people stop saying yes to doing the things they don’t want to do, they create more time and energy to do the activities and be with people that make them happy. In saying no to things, especially those that make them uncomfortable, they’re drawing a boundary. This can make others know how to respect and treat them better. Therefore, learning to say no isn’t just people being kind to oneself; it’s also teaching others to be kind to them, which is equally important.

Before one makes any relationship with others, they first need to make a decent relationship with themselves. Before they can go out and become a good person to others, they need to make sure that they’re a good person to themselves.

The Unreciprocated Love

hand towards the sky

Are you troubled by the fact that you are often disturbed by the environments, people, matters, and things around you, stray far from God in your hearts, cannot feel God, and don’t have a normal relationship with God? 

Today people live in busy and crowded times. The fast-paced life lets one be occupied by various kinds of people and things so that people seldom have time to quiet their hearts before God and draw near to God and contemplate Him. Because their hearts are always distant from God, they live in a hurried status in real life, and they exhaust themselves dealing with varying people and things each day, weary both physically and mentally. You can relate this thought in the book entitled God Cares, But Do We? by Kwaku Mensah when he digs deep into the reciprocal nature of respect, listening, and taking responsibility for our actions. However, you must have once experienced this: When you quiet yourself before God, with His guidance, you can see through many things, and you will yield twice the result with half the effort in doing things. From this, you can see the key to establishing a proper relationship with God; that is to give your heart to Him. To achieve such an effect, one needs to pray to Him actively and often contemplate His love and grace on you. Then you’ll be touched by His Spirit unconsciously, and you can live before God constantly.

So how do you reciprocate God’s love? The following are the three Can’t-miss tips concerning how to build a normal relationship with God so that you can form a closer relationship with Him.

Tip #1. Pray to God With a Concentrated Heart. God’s words say, “But the hour comes, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him” (John 4:23). First, begin from the aspect of prayer. Pray with undivided attention and at fixed times. No matter how pressed you are for time, how busy your work, or what befalls you, pray every day as normal, and eat and drink God’s words as normal.” From God’s words, one can see that if you want to build an intimate relationship with God, the most crucial step is to quiet oneself before God and pray to Him with a concentrated heart. This is a lesson that you are in urgent need of entering. Because you will encounter all kinds of external things every day that often disturb and occupy your heart and affect your everyday relationship with God, this requires you to have a place for God in your heart and pray at fixed times. Through prayer, God will use His words to enlighten and guide you from within, protecting your heart so that you can quiet yourself before Him at all times. Only in this way can your relationship with God become more and more normal.

Tip #2. Pray-Read and Ponder God’s Words Often. God’s words say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Today’s fast-paced life often causes you to be busy with your job, family, and career, and as a result, you neglect reading God’s words, cannot quiet your hearts before God, and grow further and further away from God. If you want to build a normal relationship with God, you must read and ponder God’s words every day, and this way, you will be prone to gain the work of the Holy Spirit and the life sustenance from God. Just like the Lord Jesus said, “It is the Spirit that vivifies; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

Tip #3. Seek the Truth in all things. After being corrupted by Satan, the human race worships money, power, status, and enjoyment and is often attracted and tempted by these things. When a person sees someone get a promotion or a raise, drive an expensive car, live in a luxury house, or see anyone else’s children test into college, his heart will be disturbed. One might even think that you are losing out by giving up worldly pleasures due to your faith in God and also want to chase worldly trends. Human hearts will stray farther and farther from God. So, this requires you to be quiet before God and seek the Truth to find the path of practice. God’s words say, “If ordinarily, you do not let anything slide in matters great or small if your every thought and idea is purified, and if you are quiet in your spirit, then whenever you encounter some issue, My words will immediately be inspired within you, like a bright mirror for you to check yourself against, and you will then have a way forward. This is called suiting the medicine to the illness! And the condition will surely be cured—such is the omnipotence of God. I will surely illuminate and enlighten those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and search with sincerity. I will show to all of you the mysteries of the spiritual world and the way forward, cause you to cast off your old corrupt dispositions as soon as possible, so that you may achieve life maturity and be fit for My use.” From God’s words, people can see that in all the things that happen to them, no matter how large or small, they should always be quiet before God, seek the Truth, discern right and wrong, and find a path of practice. This way, they will not be disturbed and constrained by the people, events, and things.

As long as people practice and enter according to the three paths above, your heart will often be quiet before God, and you will build a normal relationship with God and grow in life more quickly. In the end, you will be reciprocating God’s love for you.