Letters to Susan Part 16: Where can I go when I’m overwhelmed by my storm?

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Genesis 7:1 “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

Part of this post is my response to a devastated parent who emailed me asking how she could help her prodigal. (Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.)

Dear Susan:

Because I’ve been there too, I understand how overwhelmed and bewildered you’re feeling right now. And I totally get it when you say you don’t know where you go from here or how to get there. I repeat…I’ve been there too. So have every parent, spouse, child and friend who loves a prodigal.

Of course, having a prodigal isn’t the only storm people face. There are the storms of grave illness, losing a loved one, financial problems, divorce and others. And all of them…ALL of them are tough and sometimes overwhelming storms. So where can we go when we’re facing a storm of epic proportions?

All of us know the story of Noah and the ark, and you’ve probably read it many times. It’s a wonderful story of God’s protection of Noah and his family in the midst of judgment. However, I saw something entirely new in that beloved story when I read it a couple of weeks ago. And I’ve meditated on it ever since.

The setting is important because neither Noah nor the people who were going to be judged had ever seen rain, much less a storm. God told Noah He was going to “bring a flood of waters,” but He didn’t say how that would happen. One thing God did do, however, was to stress that it was God Himself who would do it. This storm was going to be from Him. (Genesis 6:17)

What I saw differently was what God said to Noah when it was time for Noah and his family to enter the ark. God didn’t tell Noah to “go” into the ark; He told him to “come” into the ark. Why is that important? Because even though Noah didn’t know how awful the storm was going to be, God did. And God went before Noah into the ark, into the haven, into that place of safety. Noah went…but God was already waiting for him there.

There are times that God tells us to go. He told Abraham to “go and I'll show you along the way” (Genesis 12:1). Jesus told His disciples to “Go and I'll go with you.” (Mark 16:15) And all of us are told to “Go into your closet and pray.” (Matthew 6:6) But when the storm of all storms was coming, that’s not what God told Noah. When Noah’s storm was coming, God had already gone into the ark before him.

I can’t predict what’s going to happen with Missy. I wish I could. Neither do I know what today might bring to you, Susan, or to me…or to anyone else. And I’m not going to even suggest that some of the things that happen aren’t tragedies. They are. Of course they are. That cancer doesn’t always go into remission. That spouse still leaves, and the marriage ends in divorce. That parent still dies. That prodigal sometimes does not come home.

I don’t know why those storms come. But I do know this. God, who is no respecter of persons, loves you and me as much as He loved Noah. And when we are about to face that “epic storm” in our lives, God will go before us before the first cloud is in the sky or the first raindrop falls. When we’re frightened and overwhelmed, we can “come into the ark” and find that God was there all along waiting for us.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, believed that God goes before us into our storms?