You are are safer in a rowboat with God in the worst of storms with no land in sight than you are standing on dry ground on the most beautiful of days without Him.
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Quite a number of years ago by now, I suppose long enough ago we could have been considered “young”, my husband was flying into the Denver airport. If you have never flown into Denver, it is known for its somewhat turbulent landings. But this flight into Denver the fog hung still and thick in the air. My husband sat in a window seat and could not see the end of the airplane wings because they were obscured by the fog.
The speaker crackled and the captain announced the plane would be landing soon. After coasting through the air for a few more minutes the plane gave a sharp jolt to it’s passengers. The passengers gasped with fearful surprise hoping something terrible hadn’t just happened with them along for the ride. They sighed with silent relief when they realized it was only the pre-announced landing. But until the wheels hit the ground, the ground could not be seen. Life is like that sometimes.
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When we moved to Lincoln NE, about 9 years ago God clearly provided the house we moved into and stayed living in until we moved to Texas 7 years later. In March of 2020 Brett’s job, along with others, was downsized. We thought it would be fun to move out of the house, put our stuff in storage and take a trip up the Alcan to Alaska. We had no solid plan after that, but with seven months of severance pay we hoped for another job sooner than later.
Our brilliant plan fell apart when Covid shut down the United States/Canada border one month later in April. We decided to stay in our house and see what happened. We planned moving several times, but none of them worked out for various reasons. Turns out we lived in the house God originally provided for us for seven months past our seven months of severance pay. So in the end, what felt like something was holding us back was, when we could see the whole thing in retrospect, a time where we ended up at the place we were headed towards from the beginning; we just couldn’t see the landing.
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Today we are taking a closer look at Lot, his lack of faith and briefly using the stories of Jesus calming the storm and walking on water to help round things out. We are always safer in a rowboat with God in the worst of storms with no land in sight than we are standing on dry ground on the most beautiful of days without Him.
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Genesis 19:16-21
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” 21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
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We see God taking care of Lot and his family and yet we also see Lot doing his best to take care of himself. If we stop to think about it, no god has as much power as God and yet we put our faith and trust and hopes and belief into other things. In this situation Lot puts his faith, hope and trust in an “independent I can do it attitude”.
But can you imagine Lot’s independent ‘I can take care of myself’ attitude showing up to drag him out of Sodom, out of his destruction? Of course not, because instead it would be working hard to keep him there. But God drags Lot and his family out of Sodom and then tells them to run to the mountains. Instead of being thankful and hurrying on his way Lot goes into his “do it myself and save myself mode”. And he says, ‘well instead of going to the mountains like You want me to I’d rather go over to this other sinful city nearby and stay there so I can take care of myself’.
Take a close look at this situation. The angels have taken Lot and his family by the hands and hurried them out of the city. Lot knows his stuff is going up in smoke and will be nothing but ashes. But he appears to be worried God will not be able to take care of him. Maybe he is in a bit of shock because he also seems to believe he can take better care of himself by staying in another sinful city than by going to the mountains where God has told him to go.
It makes sense that God, who is saving our lives, should also know the best way for us to live our lives.
Have you ever tried to improve upon Gods plan for you? Just tweak it a little? Maybe
you can’t think of any good reasons to forgive the person who offended you. And prayer? Yes Jesus said to pray, but its kind of boring isn’t it? (It isn’t but maybe we can talk about that another time.) Maybe telling the truth is not always to our advantage. And so our whole lives become living out a lie and when God tries to lead us out of living by faith in self to living by faith in Him, we hesitate.
The story of Jesus calming the storm walks hand in hand with the story of Lot being led out of Sodom. On one hand we have the disciples in the midst of a hellacious storm in a fishing boat with Jesus asleep and they have forgotten He is there and frantically try to save themselves.
On the other hand we have Lot led out of the city with his wife, two children, and his life. But when the angel tells him to flee to the mountains he worries about how he will survive.
But despite their worries and their teetering circumstances the disciples were safer in a rowboat in the storm with Jesus than if they were standing on dry ground on a perfectly sunny day.
And Lot and his family were safer outside the city fleeing to the mountains with nothing to sustain them and Gods instructions than inside the city with all of their stuff.
We find the story of Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-21. The disciples see Him through the storm and are afraid thinking He is a ghost, but when they realize it is Jesus they let Him get into the boat. The Bible says they were immediately at their destination. John 6:21 “Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.”
Sometimes we think the storms in life are slowing us up. I’m guessing maybe the disciples should have arrived at their destination by the time that Jesus joined them, but the storm held them up. But often the times of our life spent in the dark and the storm prepare us for our destination and the storm does not stop us from arriving at the time we were supposed to arrive.
The storm looked a little different to Lot. It could well have been a perfectly sunny day there in Sodom as he stood outside the gate with the storm of losing all he had worked so hard to gain. We don’t know how long it took him to realize that was pretty much one of the best day of his life. But in 2 Peter 2:7 Peter calls Lot a righteous man.
Righteousness is a journey taken on the path of righteousness led by our Good Shepherd Jesus.
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I want you to remember you are are safer in a rowboat with God in the worst of storms with no land in sight than you are standing on dry ground on the most beautiful of days without Him.
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I wrote a bit of prose the other day which goes along with this thought so I’ll share it here for anyone who enjoys a little poetry.
Silent summer night
Porch swing creaks
Crickets chirp
A dog barks
My thoughts join the stars
They leap
They dance
They hesitate
I yawn
Take them to bed
And put them to rest
Until the morning light
Shines bright
God’s pure love
Spread out
In living color
And the fears
In the dark
Have no place to hide
Now all the steps I learned
In the dark
Will carry me forward
Into my day
THE END