I sit, listening to the quiet of the morning.  The morning after, perhaps I should say.

Last night a cold front moved through our region, the coolness of the northern air pushing under the stubborn heat of our lingering southern summer.  As usually happens with this situation, the leading edge of that troublesome, change-seeking cold front roiled up a thunderstorm from the hot air, blowing through with noise and light, keeping normal folks awake and on edge for hours.

This morning brought temperatures in the sixties, instead of the eighties, and a quiet that seems almost eerie after the high energy of the night we experienced.  A few limbs had to be moved out of streets and the yards are covered with leaves and slender branches that gave up their fight during the storm, but over it all, a hush and calm has descended.  Even the songbirds seem a little muted as they wing from tree to bush today.

The calm after the storm.

Wait.  That’s not right.

The red-headed lady who raised me said it enough times the words are embedded in my brain.

The calm before the storm. That was how she would say it.

We would comment about how things seemed to be going smoothly, and she would say the words, injecting her usual pessimism—her expectation of trouble to come—into the quiet.

I may have acquired some of her fretting spirit. I’m certain the world around me, my tribe of Christ-followers included, has appropriated it these days.

Everywhere I turn, the expectation is of more disaster, of more pain.

I’m here to say the old trite saying my mother remembered from her mother (and perhaps, hers before that) is the wrong way around.  Almost inside out.

The truth is, or so it seems to me, the storm precedes the calm.

In the midst of the wind and the crashing thunder, along with the devastating lightning, there is a hope—no, a certainty—that calm will descend anew.  The noise will stop, the catastrophic power of the storm will fade, and we’ll bind up the wounds as we weep for our losses and move forward.

Headed home—again.

There is hope.  I don’t know how long the storm will last.  I do know our Creator, our God, has plans for good for us, not destruction.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
(Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

I do know our Savior acknowledged the storms of life, but told us not to give in to terror and hopelessness.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
(John 16:33, NIV)

I am not a Pollyanna, quoting only “rejoicing texts.”  Nor, am I a Little Orphan Annie insisting “the sun’ll come out tomorrow.”  No, I am simply a pragmatist with Faith.  Faith with a capital F.

I know better than to trust to the devices of men, or the machinations of politics, or even the beneficence of a sympathetic universe.  Simply put, I believe in the words of a trustworthy Creator and the experience of having spent a lifetime invested in following Him.

I wish I could insert the word “fully” in the previous sentence, right before “invested.”  I’m sorry to say I have only been heavily invested for short periods of time.  Before that, I was partially invested. Perhaps, it was merely slightly invested.

Have I made it clear that I’m not all that good at this “following Christ” gig?  My lack of enthusiastic participation doesn’t change His investment in the slightest.

He’s all in.

And not just for me.  He’s all in for every single person who believes in Him.  Every one.

Calm follows a storm.  It always has.  I see no reason to believe that’s going to change.

I’m not telling you the red-headed lady was wrong.  I just think she might have put the cart before the horse.  She told me that happened a lot, too.

For many, the storm is still raging.  All around, events are out of control and all appears to be lost.

It’s not.  Calm will come again.  It will.

The wind and the waves still know His voice. 

Your heart will too.

Rest.

 

I have both the violent turbulence of the storm and the quiet promises of God in the storm. And what I must work to remember is that something is not necessarily stronger simply because it’s louder.
(Craig Lounsbrough ~ Pastor/Counselor)

Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
(Mark 4:39, NKJV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2021. All Rights Reserved.