Today Daily Devotional

The book of Job explores the relationship between humans and God. Job, who is faithful to God, goes through a difficult series of tests. He loses all his children, all his livestock, and his livelihood. He also loses his health. But he never stops trusting God (Job 1-3).

Job’s friends come around, and instead of consoling him, they say he must have done some terrible wrong, or all this trouble would not have happened. But they are mistaken, and their words do more harm than good. Job wonders why all this calamity is happening. And eventually he calls on God to answer him (Job 4-31).

Another friend speaks up and offers wise insights about the all-powerful God, who has created all things. We cannot understand all of God’s ways because God is so different from us. Yet God cares for us, teaches us wisdom, and is righteous and just (Job 32-37).

Then God himself speaks (Job 38-41), asking Job if he knows how the earth was made, who gave the sea its limits, and how the forces of nature work to bring food and water for all living things.

Of course, Job does not know these things—and neither do we know all things. But God is good, and our lives are in his hands. God allows storms and trouble to come our way, and often we are not at fault. But God can also bring us through and heal us. We can trust that in God our future is secure.

The prophet Elijah was running for his life. He had been faithful to God, warning King Ahab and Queen Jezebel that they needed to obey God and stop misleading the people of Israel. But Ahab and Jezebel would not listen—not even after God showed his power through Elijah in a dramatic showdown (1 Kings 18). In­stead, Jezebel threatened to hunt Elijah down and kill him.

So Elijah ran away into the wilderness. There God sent an ­angel to care for him, and that gave him energy to keep traveling all the way to Horeb (Mt. Sinai), where God had met Moses and the people of Israel many years earlier (Exodus 19-20).

In a cave on Mount Horeb, Elijah heard God calling him to come out and meet him as he passed by. A series of storms came. A great wind tore at the mountain and shattered rocks. But God was not in the wind. Then the earth shook, and fire came out of nowhere, but God was not in the earthquake or the fire.

Then there was a sound of stillness. And Elijah emerged, with his face covered, to meet with God. God spoke with encouragement and care, giving Elijah new tasks to do. And these included anointing another prophet so that Elijah would no longer work alone.

In this way the Lord reaffirmed Elijah, and Elijah continued to serve God faithfully.

In the Old Testament, it was not unusual for people to be terrified and in awe of God’s presence. For example, in Exodus 20:18-19, “when the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.’” The people were afraid because they knew they were sinful and that God is holy and awesome, with power beyond imagining.

The book of Hebrews helps to explain the significance of Jesus’ death for our sake. When Jesus died on the cross, he experienced the same separation from God that so terrified Israel. By paying for our sins and reconciling us to God, Jesus cut through that darkness forever. The terror of being in God’s presence is no longer there because we can approach God through Christ, the one he loves and accepts.

Hebrews urges us to approach God at any time. Through Jesus, God made himself accessible to all people, regardless of their situations or circum­stances. God loves us all, and he is ready to give grace to anyone who comes to faith through his Son.

On September 2, 2015, news outlets around the world reported a horrible tragedy: the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi had washed up on a beach near Bodrum, Turkey. Alan’s family of Syrian refugees were trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to a Greek island when their inflatable boat capsized. This tragedy testified to the refugees’ desperation: they chose to risk the harsh sea in a raft to escape the threats of terrorists in their homeland. The accident also reminds us of the long history of shipwrecks in that area.

The Mediterranean Sea was a key part of the apostle Paul’s missionary travels. He tells of being shipwrecked three times and being stranded on the open sea. In Paul’s work of spreading the good news of Jesus, he was also sometimes beaten, pelted with stones, and thrown into prison. That happened because people in some places were hostile to the message of Christ. In addition, there were false teachers who twisted the message of Jesus for their own profit, fame, and power. Sadly, false and corrupt leaders are still doing similar things today.

As Paul (and Jesus) explained, challenges and dangers often go with sharing the good news because the devil is opposed to it. Satan doesn’t want anyone to be saved. But in God’s strength, the good news of Jesus keeps spreading.

Will you help to share it too?

On nautical maps, an important feature is the “wind rose,” a graphic image used by meteorologists to show how wind speed and direction are typically distributed in a certain place. This tool can be very useful to mariners for avoiding trouble spots at sea.

In some ways, this passage in Jeremiah 30 is like a “wind rose.” It helps God’s people see how the Lord was going to act in order to restore them. You see, at this time in history, God’s people were in exile for rebelling against God. They had followed after other gods and had refused to honor the Lord, who had made them into a great nation. So God had disciplined them by sending them into exile.

Sadly, though, their conquerors had brutally enslaved them and carried them away after destroying their land. And when God’s people cried out in their distress, the Lord heard them.

So how would God act to restore his people? “The storm of the Lord” would burst out like “a driving wind swirling down on the heads of the wicked.” God is powerful enough to overwhelm evil. The people needed God to save them from this enemy that had exploited them.

Explaining all this, God promised to bring them honor again, saying, “So you will be my people, and I will be your God.”

Many of us think of the water as a place to relax and play, like on a day at the beach. For seafarers, winds and waves are part of their daily work and can be deadly enemies. Regular maintenance is essential to make sure a ship is ready for a storm that might come up.

Seafarers take their enemies seriously, and God’s people need to do that too. The writer of Psalm 83 recalls how God delivered his people in the past, and the writer pleads with God to help them again. The psalmist speaks of blowing the enemies around like dust or sending a firestorm or a tempest to terrify them and make them repent.

At first, these verses might make us uncomfortable, but they describe the power necessary to overcome the enemy. God’s power is not arbitrary or cruel; it shows that God is loving and just. Both the enemies and the people of God will come to know that the Lord alone is “Most High over all the earth.”

Only God can banish evil. God’s action, described as a kind of storm in these verses, has tremendous power to overwhelm an enemy.

We can call on God to defend us. Jesus himself had to defend against Satan, the great enemy. And in Jesus’ case, he used the power of the Word of God—and Satan could not overcome it (Luke 4:1-13).

Samuel was Israel’s prophet at the end of the period of the judges (which lasted about 300 years after the time of Moses and Joshua—see Joshua 1). In our reading for today, Samuel gives a speech after confirming Saul as Israel’s king.

Samuel walked closely with God and was a faithful leader. But the people had often turned to worship the false gods of the nations around them, and they now insisted on having a king like the other nations, even though the one true God was their King. In his speech Samuel reminded the people of their sins. He also asked the Lord to use a storm to prove his point. And the Lord sent a storm.

In that society many of the people were farmers. They were always watching the weather, especially at the time of harvest. If the crops became wet, mold would grow on them, and they could not be harvested and stored. So this rain was very disturbing for Samuel’s audience.

Yet God’s mercy is always available. The people now understood how great their sin was in asking for a king, and the Lord and Samuel now had their attention. But Samuel also reassured them that he would pray to God for them and continue teaching “the way that is good and right.”

Many Bible texts talk about the destructive power of storms and how sometimes God uses storms to bring judgment. But many other texts describe storms as bringing blessings, ­especially in the rains that water the land.

Regular rainfall was essential for ancient cultures with limited irrigation systems. When Jacob sent his sons from Canaan to buy food in Egypt (Genesis 42), it was impossible to grow food where they were. They needed rain for their crops, but instead they had a massive famine. Can we imagine that kind of need? Access to clean water is essential for survival.

Zechariah reminded God’s people that the Lord is the source of rain. Zechariah’s prophecies were pastoral, emphasizing that God is at work in nature and is the source of the people’s power. We all need to ask God for his blessing and to live lives that reflect the source of that blessing. At that time, the people were rebuilding the temple of God in Jerusalem, so Zechariah reminded them that God calls everyone to turn away from sin and to serve him in faith.

The closing chapters of Zechariah begin pointing to the coming Messiah (Christ), the Savior. Not only does the Lord provide rain for everyone, but in the coming kingdom God will provide all that everyone will need.

About 150 years after the time of Jonah (see March 21), Nahum prophesied about the fall of Nineveh. This city was the capital of what was now the vast Assyrian Empire.

With the great river system that connects the Mediterranean region to the Indian Ocean, Nineveh had access to enormous wealth. In trade and business, the Assyrians accumulated gold, silver, and copper from all over their empire.

But the Assyrians also exploited the people they ruled. The Bible tells of how Assyria pillaged ten of the tribes of Israel and took them away as slaves, leaving the two tribes of Judah and Simeon as its vassals. This injury to God’s people was never undone.

Though Jonah had preached God’s grace to Nineveh and the people had repented back then, the Assyrians had grown proud and corrupt as they expanded their empire. Nahum preached that Nineveh would fall, and in the end Assyria reaped what it had sown. A bitter civil war saw Nineveh sacked by its former subjects.

Through Nahum, God told his people that they needed to trust in him rather than the ways of the world. The storms of war brought low the greatest empire at that time, and the guilty did not go unpunished. God alone “is good, a refuge in times of trouble.”

Despite many advances in technology, seafaring is still dangerous today. In the past 10 years, more than 1,000 large ships have been lost worldwide. We often don’t hear about these shipwrecks in the news unless they affect our own country or region. Many of us in North America, however, heard that the United States-flagged cargo ship El Faro, on its way to Puerto Rico, sank at sea with all 33 crew members on October 1, 2015, after sailing into Hurricane Joaquin.

The prophet Jonah boarded a ship heading for Tarshish, a destination as far away as he could go from where the Lord had sent him to preach—in Nineveh. But despite Jonah’s rebellion, the Lord brought him back in the right direction. God sent a storm that threatened to wreck the ship until Jonah was thrown overboard. Then, as the storm quickly cleared, the sailors worshiped the Lord, and God sent a huge fish to bring Jonah back to dry land.

This story shows the amazing power of God—not only over nature but also to bring repentance and salvation. God turned Jonah around and brought him to preach a message of grace to Nineveh. And the people there repented and were spared from destruction.

Have there been storms in your life that God has used to bring repentance and faith?