Travel Tips for Storm-Goers

0:44 Would you turn in your Bibles, please, this morning to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, as we finish out that chapter. I'm going to guess that some of you are nervous when it comes to flying. I know that because I meet enough people who tell me that. It's funny, I'll be on an airplane and I've had people get on who recognize me and they'll go, oh, like they, I think we're going to be okay, you know. And I don't want to do it then, but I think, have you read the book of Jonah? Because the storm got worse because the man of God was on board on that one. but anyway we especially don't like the idea of flying into a storm if you've ever been in an airplane and there's turbulence and then the seat belt sign comes on the pilot says we're about to fly into a system and you can expect this and that one time I was flying overseas to Israel on an airlines that I think is out of business now we were over the Atlantic it was a flight from New York to London, I think the first leg was, but it was a terrific storm, a horrific storm, and we were bouncing around, and it was the only time on a flight I remember an engine going out. It was a big pop and fire, and when the engine blew, and the pilot says, look, we have other engines, don't worry. But what I remember is we lost altitude immediately. Just we fell in the sky, and whatever food trays were on the people's laps were on the ceiling momentarily, and then they came back down. And looking around, I knew everybody in that moment is thinking about life and death. Storms do that. They make things clear while we're in them. But storms can be very helpful. In some cases, it's a matter of survival to have a storm. I'll give you an example. There's

2:55 a bird called an albatross. I'm going to show a picture. They have a wingspan of about 11 feet, And the albatross is a bird that lives out in the sea. It sits sort of helplessly on the water when it's calm. Because of its wingspan, it's nearly impossible for a bird like that to take off from a flat surface. So the albatross depends on a storm coming. And when the storm blows in and the winds roar, all it has to do is put out its wings and quite easily it can lift off from the surface of the water. I bring that up because I see the Christian as being the albatross. It's the storms that make us climb higher and gain altitude. some people have even found that it's because of the storm that they went through that things got better for them and let me give you this as an illustration there is a husband and wife they live in Colorado they both love motorcycles they are both believers they were on their motorcycle he was driving she was the passenger they were on a highway there was a truck in front of them. It slowed down. They wanted to pass it up. And they were passing the truck on the highway, not realizing there was a car parked on the other side of the road, very close to the lane. And they went out too far and they hit the car with the motorcycle, flew off. Both of them launched into the air, hit the ground, were taken to the hospital. They survived. It was difficult, but when the passenger, the lady, got a CAT scan, they discovered a tumor. Nobody knew about this. Stage one ovarian cancer. And the doctor said, boy, am I glad that we got a view of this now because this is easily treatable at this stage. And because it was in its early stage

5:04 and they caught it because of the accident. She lived and is still alive. So they look back at that motorcycle crash and say, thank you, Lord, that we were able to go through that storm to get a look at that tumor. We are looking at Mark chapter 4, the very end of the chapter. The last paragraph in verse 35 begins, on the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was, and other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

6:12 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. But he said to them, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? and they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? This happens to be one of Christianity's favorite stories. For the last 2,000 years, this has been a celebrated, highlighted, inspired story. So, early Christian motif will often depict a boat going through a storm and the inside of cathedrals in antiquity, not antiquity, but in the old days, still to this day, the inside ceiling of many cathedrals is like a reverse hull of a ship on purpose.

7:22 it is the idea meant to portray that the church is going to carry people through the storms of this world all the way into eternity and so they shape the top of the ceiling called the nave by the way n-a-v-e we get our word navy from that it means a ship the idea of this storm and this ship is very common in christianity and it has inspired great artists probably the most famous depiction of this storm is by Rembrandt himself, who painted this picture called Storm on the Sea of Galilee. And what's interesting about, there's many things interesting about this painting, but this is not a painting class. So this was in a museum in Boston. It was stolen in 1990. Nobody to this day knows where it is, but it inspired Rembrandt, who painted himself in the picture as well. Another story. It has also inspired lots of music. I discovered 22 hymns based on the story we just read. I'm not going to tell you them all, but here's a few of them. One is called Master the Tempest is Raging. That's from 1874. Mary Ann Baker wrote that. The most famous song on this, I think, is a song called A Word from Jesus Calms the Sea, written by John Newton, who gave us the song Amazing Grace. Then there's a song called The Boat in Galilee, 1915 by Barbara Knox, Albertsworth. And then finally from 1880, a song called A Shelter in the Time of Storm. So there's lots of worship songs based upon this story. It is so familiar to us, I've decided to outline it applicationally. Nothing is going to rhyme in the outline. There's no alliteration, just straight up. Here's some tips as we go through the text on going through a storm.

9:26 Six travel tips for storm goers. Here's the first. Accept the regularity. You are going to get storms, and you are going to get them regularly throughout your life. Whether you are saved or not, there are going to be hard times. The Bible promises that. Accept the regularity. Now look at verse 35 with me. It says, on the same day when evening had come. I want to unpack that for a moment. On the same day when evening had come. The day for Jesus and the disciples has already been rough. It's about to get rougher.

10:13 The day began back in chapter 3 with a confrontation. That's how the day started. The day started when a group of Pharisees came to Jesus and suggested the power that he had to cast demons out came from Satan himself. So the day started with a confrontation. It then moved into an intervention when family members of Jesus came all the way from Nazareth to rescue Jesus from himself and from the crowd, suggesting he is out of his mind, and they wanted to take him back with them to Nazareth. So there was confrontation, then intervention, followed by instruction. He goes out to the Sea of Galilee, swarms of people gather around him, so many people, he gets into a little boat, and he teaches them. So there's confrontation, intervention, now instruction. He teaches the crowd in parables. He then further instructs the disciples on the meaning of those parables.

11:19 So that takes them from morning all the way to the evening. And so now the evening has come. It's been a stressful day. It's been a long day. Now it's time to get away from it all. Get some R&R. Well, of course, it's about to get much worse. And I'm setting the table that way just because that's how life works. Life is filled with troubles. In the book of Job, it was Eliphaz who said, man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward. you are either in a storm now, or you just came out of one, or you're about to sail into one. So accept the regularity of storms. By the way, Matthew, when he describes the same scene, he says the storm came suddenly, without warning. Day started off sunny, calm, and then it changed very quickly.

12:28 And we've discovered that, have we not? It takes a split second for everything in life to change. One phone call. One visit to the doctor. And he reads the report. One drive in the car and you didn't see that car coming or the car parked when you passed. Everything changes completely very, very suddenly. Jesus even said, in this world you shall have tribulation. He didn't say you might have it. He didn't say you can claim it away and you won't have it. He said you're going to have it. In this world you will have tribulation. Then James went so far as to say, count it all joy. Yeah, right.

13:21 when you fall into various trials, knowing that the trial of your faith produces patience. Count it all joy when, not if, when you fall into various trials. By the way, that term, various trials, it means variegated, many-colored.

13:41 Storms come in all shades. One day you feel blue, the next day is a gray day. Next day you're green with envy. every shade, every color, there are trials. Some are big, some are small, some are short, some are long. There's physical trials, emotional trials, relational trials, spiritual trials, professional trials, personal trials. They are regular. And I can say from experience, they don't lessen with age. Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But I can't say that, yeah, when you get to age 50, you know, whatever you experienced at 40, it's smooth sailing after that. Oh, no, it's not. They keep coming. They're just different. And hopefully by a certain time, you've learned a few things about them and how to anticipate them and what to do in them.

14:39 But you are going to have a harder life if you think you can pray away every storm. I'm claiming that I don't have it. I'm Jesus' name. Okay, fine. You can claim prosperity all you want, but you are not going to avoid the pain. And if you think you will, you are going to end up a very disappointed human being in life and in God. So it's better to accept the regularity. That's number one. Second tip, look for the promise. Look for the promises. Go back to verse 35. On the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. So this boat ride was whose idea? Jesus. He is sending them into the storm that he knows is coming. He prescribed this storm, you might say, but tucked into his suggestion that they leave is a promise. Can you find it? Look at it. See if you can find the promise. Here's the two words to notice. Crossover. Let us cross over. That happens to be a promise of a safe arrival.

16:05 We are going to cross over. They should have remembered that he said this because in a few minutes they are completely forgetting that he made this statement. You see, Jesus said they're going over. And if he said they're going over, that means they're not going under. they thought they were going under but they're not, there's a promise there so what should we do in a storm? we should find a promise we should hold on to that promise and we should turn the promise into the premise by which we exercise our faith that becomes what I stand on to believe that I'm going to get to the other side. The promise becomes the premise for me to exercise my faith. In the Civil War, when life was very difficult and the president was Abraham Lincoln, he had a Bible.

17:01 There's a Lincoln Bible. Here's a picture of the Bible. And there's a picture of Psalm 34. And what do you notice about that picture, if you can see it? There's a thumbprint or a fingerprint. So what scholars believe is this is a psalm he often turned to in dark times, and he placed his thumb or one of those bony long fingers often on that page, pointing to verse 4, which reads, I sought the Lord, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. That's the promise that our president during the Civil War made his premise to exercise his faith. Now, storms come in different velocities. If a storm gets enough wind past 74 miles an hour, we call it something else. What do we call it? A hurricane. A hurricane begins at wind speeds of 74 miles an hour up to 150 miles an hour, bringing great destruction with it. What the fascinating thing about a hurricane is what's right in the middle of it, and that's called the eye of the hurricane. If you're in the eye of the hurricane, it's perfectly calm.

18:23 You would never know, unless you had gone through it, that there is that storm all around you. The promise is the eye. When you find the promise in the storm, that becomes the place of shelter, becomes the eye. It is where you are protected. The promise becomes the premise for you to exercise your faith. You're in the eye. I was asked years ago by somebody, what do you do with the promises of God? I think my answer was, I underline them. And that's okay. I think I might have even said I memorized them. But I think what he was getting at is, young man, there comes, I was young at that time. He said, young man, there comes a time when you need to stand on them. Not just memorize them, not just on them, but stand on them. True story, when our country was being first settled and there were no bridges across the great rivers like the Mississippi, it was early winter and a man came to the banks of the Mississippi, it was iced over, he did not know how thick the ice was. He thought if he just walked across, he might fall into shallow ice and get killed. So he got on all fours. I almost decided to try that for you, but I'm going to restrain.

19:48 He got on all fours to distribute his weight evenly, and he started crawling on the ice. He was about halfway out in the Mississippi River, and he heard behind him singing and the hoofbeats of horses on the ice. He turned to see a man in a horse-drawn carriage with a whole load of coal being pulled behind him going over the icy river while he's singing. Well, now he feels stupid. Right? He's on all fours. He's not standing on the promise. He is creeping on the premise. so he stands up to his feet. Now he's confident because he has just seen someone who has proven that the eyes can hold him. So in a storm, accept the regularity, look for the promise. That promise is going to be firm ground for you later on. Third, invite Jesus into your boat.

20:53 Verse 36, Waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. Now, that word great wind is a word. The word great is mega. The Greek word mega. So this wasn't just a breeze. This was a mega wind, a mega storm. And on the Sea of Galilee, winds can get up to 75 miles per hour quite suddenly. now again I don't know about your experience out on the open sea during a storm but it can be very disorienting and very nauseating to be in a boat rocking back and forth my first experience was with my dad who wanted to take a couple of his sons me included deep sea fishing from Newport Beach California Davy Jones locker was the outfit and we were to leave in the evening. So we left at night and we were to sleep on the boat overnight so that we could catch Barracuda in the morning. And it was so stormy and that boat rocked back and forth. I did not have a good time. I was releasing into the ocean whatever contents were in my stomach most of the trip. So that was my first experience. My second most memorable time was crossing the English Channel in a storm, and I was okay. I had my sea legs by then, but it was sort of humorous for me to see these proper English gentlemen and ladies in their

23:01 fur coats and hats now over the edge of the boat in that storm. The Sea of Galilee is an interesting place. It is below sea level. It is 690 feet below sea level. It is the lowest freshwater lake on planet earth. It's part of a system called the Syrio-African Rift, goes all the way from Syria down to Mozambique, Africa, and it's part of this fault line. and so the Jordan River, Sea of Galilee, Dead Sea is all below sea level. Well, on either side of the Sea of Galilee are mountains, ravines. On one side, the mountains rise up to 1,500 feet. On the other side, they get up to 3,000 feet in elevation. And because this Sea of Galilee is like at the bottom of a bowl, it heats up and the heat rises. The thermals kind of build up during the day and they can invite the cooler air from the Mediterranean, which is only 25 miles away, to come through the ravines. And as the wind comes down like a vacuum being sucked in by that pressure, it gains speed like a Venturi in a carburetor. And it just builds up. So when the cold and the warm air hit, the winds are sudden and they can be violent. May of 2022, March of 1992, and January of 1837 all showed this. This is from 1992. Those are waves coming into a hotel with people in it during a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Ten-foot waves were recorded on that sea, and they can capsize a boat. And if you ever come with us to Israel, I'll show you a boat that is 2,000 years old that they discovered in 1987 and is now on a display in a kibbutz. And you can see a boat very similar to the one that Jesus and his disciples would have taken. So these boats can capsize in

25:11 these kind of storms. They didn't know what they were getting into. Look at verse 36. This is really what I want to get to here. When they left the multitude, they took him, that is Jesus, in the boat as he was. Now, we're not sure what that phrase means, as he was, but it probably means he was just exhausted. He was physically spent, and I think it's proven by the fact that he can sleep through that kind of a storm. He just knocked out. They took him as he was, but they took him in their boat nonetheless. And that's what I want to get at. Invite Jesus into your boat. As you begin every day before your feet hit the ground, ask him to come into your boat, superintend your day, manage the hours of your day, unfold his providence in your day.

26:09 Because truth is, you don't know where your boat is heading. You don't know where it's going to end up by the end of the day. don't wait until the first waves start crashing in. I don't know what time your first trial begins. It might begin before breakfast, but don't wait and then go, oh yeah, I forgot to pray. Invite him in the boat early on. There was a bumper sticker. Have you seen this one? Jesus is my co-pilot. It was a very famous one some years ago. I don't see it often. I'm glad because I don't like it. I see that bumper sticker. I think that's your problem. If Jesus is your co-pilot, you need to switch places. You got to give him the reins of your life. You got to make him in charge. So begin your day by inviting him to take control. Go on the ultimate adventure of letting God unfold his providence in your life. I like to begin with Romans 12, where he said, I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. So I kind of make that my prayer. Lord, I give you my body. I present it to you. Before I begin the day, I am inviting you to take charge and take me and use me.

27:34 When you invite him into your boat, so to speak, and you hold on to his promise, that is what is going to give you the confidence when your day does not go as you have planned it. You think, I'm holding on to his promise. He's in my boat. Let me give you another tip. Take your cues from him. Take your cues from him. What is Jesus doing in the boat?

28:03 He's sleeping. So he's not panicked. I had a friend who had a plaque in his office, God never panics. It's good to see that. Jesus is asleep, verse 38, but he was in the stern in the back of the boat, asleep on a pillow. And the word means a head pillow. and they awoke him. They had to wake him up. The storm didn't wake him up, which is kind of odd, but it shows how exhausted he was. They awoke him and said, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? First of all, just imagine Jesus in a boat. The sails are ripped. Water is filling the boat. The disciples happen to bail the water to keep it going. It's very uncomfortable, but he's asleep. And why is that important? It's a window into his incarnation. He is fully God, but he is fully human. As a human, he's exhausted. As God, he's going to stand up and take care of it. He's going to calm the sea. He can do both. So what tickles me, I guess, it does, is their reaction to Jesus being so calm. They dare suggest, teacher, do you not care?

29:29 that we are perishing. I get tickled at that because I see myself in that. We do the same thing. We think, God, you're oblivious to my misery. We even do this with other people, by the way. If they don't enter into our suffering emotionally enough, we kind of get ticked off. Don't you care? Hey, this is bad. let me, okay, okay. No, I mean, you got to get worked up. And so Jesus is calm, and that's what they should have done. They should have noticed he's relaxed. He's sleeping.

30:12 I guess I can relax. I guess I don't have to get worked up. Take your cues from him. I don't know if you've ever been around first responders much, but if you ever have to call 911 and first responders come, one of the first things you'll notice is they walk in, they walk in calm. They're trained to do this. They're trained to de-escalate, to bring the temperature down, to bring calm where there is no calm. Whether it's a medical emergency or a break-in or a domestic dispute, they come in very, very calm. And they do that because that calmness can spread, just like panic can spread, so can this attitude. There's a painting, and we're going to show a picture of it. It's a picture of a storm and waves crashing on rocks, and the name of this picture is called Peace, which seems to be the opposite of what it's portraying. And here's why it is called Peace. Down in the corner, do you see that little circle now we put it up there for That's a little bird in a cleft, hidden, safe, secure.

31:24 Waves are crashing around him like the eye of the hurricane. Peace, experiencing peace in a storm. Peace is not the absence of the storm. Peace is the presence of the Savior. Jesus is in the boat, guys. He's not worked up. He's relaxed. So take your cues from him. Let me give you another tip. This is tip number five. Swap your fear for faith, which is exactly what our Lord tells them to do. Verse 39, then he arose and he rebuked the wind and he said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. literally, hush, be quiet.

32:18 Jesus speaks to creation as if it were a child. Shh, stop. It happened. It's the same word also in Mark chapter one when Jesus spoke to a demon inside of a man in a synagogue at Capernaum. He said, peace. He said the same exact word. literally means hush or be muzzled. So just as he has power in the supernatural realm, he also has power in the natural realm. He is the creator. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. All things were made by him. If he can make it, he can manage it. If he can create it, he can control it. So he did. He said, hush, be quiet. And notice what happened when he said that.

33:13 The wind ceased and there was what? There was a great calm. Now that happens to be a double miracle. It's one thing to have the wind stop. But usually if you've ever been at sea and there's wind waves generated, waves generated by the wind. If the wind for some reason stops, the waves are still bouncing for at least 30 minutes to an hour before it calms down. But not on this day. It was miracle number one, the wind ceased. Miracle number two, the waves stopped. It was instantaneous, glassy conditions, perfectly, perfectly still. In fact, the word here, it says the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And guess what word that is? Mega again. There was a great storm and now there is a mega calm.

34:11 And when it got really calm and now they're standing up at attention wide-eyed, Jesus asked them a question, two questions. Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith? He is addressing, he's addressing what? He's addressing the emotion that is consuming them, which is fear. Fear. It is immobilizing people. Fear is the most destructive emotion in the world. It's much easier to frighten people than it is to persuade people. I can prove that. COVID.

34:50 COVID. People figured we can scare the heck out of people and get them to do what we want. Fear can motivate them, and they're very, very fearful. There was a study put out in this country by the National Institute of Standards. It's a government organization. I know there are many. And the National Institute of Standards put out this report that said, a dense fog that covers seven city blocks, 100 feet thick, is only comprised of less than a single glass of water. Less than one glass of water can create a fog 100 feet thick, seven city blocks. The reason it becomes hard to get through is because you have that water dispersed in 60 billion droplets over a wide area. So it becomes something that blocks your vision.

35:52 That's what fear does. What happens when a person is consumed with the emotion of fear is small worries have the capacity to disproportionately cloud your perspective. You can't see. You can't figure out how I'm going to get through this. Fear immobilizes you. I read this and I wrote it down. One person said, fear knocked at the door, faith answered, and no one was there.

36:26 Fear knocked at the door, faith answered, and no one was there. You know what I've discovered? Faith and fear make lousy roommates. They don't like each other. They fight each other. It seems like you can have one or the other. and I've discovered that if you are feeding your faith, that you're gonna starve your fears. But if you're feeding your fears, you're gonna starve your faith. So he says, stop it. Stop being afraid. Don't let fear consume you. Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? Now, when you do that, when you swap your fear for, okay, I've got a promise. Jesus is with me. I'm gonna stand on that. You're gonna discover something. you're going to see better than ever before in the dark. You know, when you're out in bright light, you can spot things really easily. When you go into a dark room, it takes a while for your eyes to get used to that. But when they get used to that, you have a couple of different cells, as probably you know, in your eye. You have cones and you have rods, and the cones help you delineate color and acuity during bright sunlight. But rods kick in in the dark, peripherally you can see things you never saw before when your eyes grow accustomed to the dark. I have discovered in some of my darkest storms that there is a clarity that comes where I see God's power, God's provision, God's promise, that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. That comes into focus as my eyes grow accustomed to that. So he tells them to stop being fearful and to have faith, and he has good reason to. I mean, there are several reasons for this. Number one, the promise. You're going to get to the other side. Number two, he's in the boat with them, so it's not going down. Number three, I've been sleeping till you woke me up pretty peacefully. And number four, Jesus has displayed compassion on a number of occasions through a paralytic demon-possessed man delivering people

38:38 from all sorts of maladies, taking care of his disciples. For them to say, you don't care? There's no reason for that. There's much more reason for them to believe. So swap your fear for faith. Here's the last one. Find the purpose. What's the purpose? What is God trying to show me? Verse 41, and they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? That's the purpose. The purpose for this storm is to get the disciples to ask and answer that question. who is this guy? Now you notice something in verse 41. It says they feared what?

39:33 Got your Bible open? They feared exceedingly. Guess what word that is? Mega. It shows three times in this passage. There was a mega storm and a mega calm. Now the disciples have mega fear. They're not afraid of the storm. That's gone. They're afraid of the calm. And here's why they're afraid. They were exceeding afraid because there's only one explanation for what just happened. And that is God is in my boat. The creator is on board. I'm looking at the creator. I'm looking at God. And if I'm looking at God, that means God is looking at me. And this is the proper response when you realize you're in the presence of God, really in the presence of God. It's the same thing Isaiah had. When Isaiah said, in the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. And he said, I'm going to go on Christian television and write a book and let people know that I saw God. No, he takes the opposite. He goes, woe is me. Woe is me. I am undone. I've just seen God. If I saw God, then in his perfection, that God has seen me in all my sinfulness. This is exactly what happened to Peter at another episode on the Sea of Galilee, when there was a great catch of fish, and he realized momentarily who Jesus is. He said, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. Or John the apostle, when he gets a vision of Jesus in Revelation. I fell at his feet as dead. This is called the fear of the Lord.

41:22 This is the purpose of the storm. The purpose of the storm is to get the disciples to ask this question and to have it answered. The boat cannot sink because God is in it. And if I'm linked with him, I'm okay. So when trouble comes, we can do one of three things. Well, you can do a lot of things, but typically we do one of three things.

41:47 Number one, we try to escape. Number two, we don't escape, we endure. number three, we can enlist it. Now, let me explain that. Nobody likes suffering. Nobody says, yeah, I'd like to have a day of just pure suffering. Nobody, we all want to escape that if we can. Here's the problem. If you're always trying to escape trouble, you're going to miss the purpose that God has in using that trouble to achieve something in your life. but if you go well then I won't escape it but I'll just white knuckle it and endure it if that's all you do then the trial has become your master and you're going to end up hard and bitter I meet too many people like this but if you learn to enlist your trials then they become your servants. And they work for you. They inform you there is a God who loves me as a plan for my life.

42:52 All things are working together for good because God has called me and God gets the glory. So rather than ask, and I've said this so many times because I now have learned to do this, rather than ask, how can I get out of this? I should be asking, what can I get out of this? What do I need to learn? Find the purpose. Find the purpose. So storms are necessary for Christian growth. They are vehicles that remind us, you're not in charge. He is. And God uses them, as we know, to shape us, to have us grow into what he wants us to become and to display his glory. Charles Spurgeon used to say, the worst thing that can happen to anyone is to have their path made too smooth. Shallowest people I meet are people who have not suffered much.

43:50 Not even worth being around a conversation much, really. Nothing to offer. But people who have suffered and endured and enlisted the trials, they're worth listening to. so why do we go through storms here it is in a nutshell christians go through storms to display the superiority of a life lived in god because look look everybody on earth suffers good or bad christian or non-christian but the reason Christians get cancer and the reason Christians face bankruptcy and why Christians get depression and why Christians get their hearts broken is to show the world God's people handle things differently. God's in our boat. God's given us a promise. I'm going to make it to the other side.

44:46 He's using this for his purpose. So we're the albatross. So when the winds come and the storm comes, that's when you lift your wings up because that's when you're going to soar and you're going to get a view like you've never had in your life. father that's where we leave this we leave this now and we leave ourselves before you as living sacrifices holy and acceptable which is our reasonable service thank you lord that in every storm you have been there and your promises have been with you and with us. We've made it through.

45:41 Not unscathed, but wiser, better, more honed. we trust you with our future whether there's smooth sailing or turbulent waters I pray that Lord that we will soar to new heights in Jesus name