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The Storm:
How An Act of God Taught Me Faith
by Clay Drysdale
(Home)

As I approached the old house along the country road, my eyes found the destruction. Broken, fallen trees lay crisscrossed everywhere, almost completely obscuring the house. Several large holes were prominent in its roof. The once peaceful yard was now broken and damaged, possessing an unsettling loneliness. It was painful to witness this stark scene.

Just a little over a week earlier, I had come out here with my wife and children to look at this house - it was soon to be used as the ministry center for a new church being planted. As we got out of our car and walked around the side of the house on that warm summer evening, the serenity of the yard overwhelmed my wife and me both. The beauty of the tall, mature trees and lush plant life, combined with abundant privacy, made us both long to live there. How we would love to call this place home! We both wanted to be able to take a barefooted stroll around the yard and yell for joy at the top of our lungs if we wanted, not having to worry about the neighbors questioning our sanity.

The long, rolling field behind the house only added to the beauty. A lone horse swished his tail at an unseen pest at the far end of the field. A gentle breeze blew through our hair as we watched the setting sun on the horizon. Maybe, just maybe, someday we could live in a place as peaceful as this. To have all this room would be absolutely wonderful.

Today, however, four days after a tornado ripped through the area, the scene evoked quite different emotions. Gone are the peaceful thoughts of warm summer nights spent playing in the yard with the kids. Now I could barely see any grass for the mass of fallen trees. One of the first thoughts I had upon seeing the destruction was, What a waste! This beautiful home is now destroyed. The house itself is most likely beyond repair and ready for demolition. Nature possesses tremendous forces that can easily change the face of our world.

But this isn't just nature - it is God! As the Proverb says, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Prov. 16:33 NIV). Nothing happens by chance on this earth. These are ideas that, quite frankly, I'm still trying to reconcile in my mind. All I know to do in the meantime is study the scriptures and trust God.

God knew the storm was coming that night, just days after volunteers spent the better part of a Saturday cleaning and painting the old house. He obviously had other plans in mind for the new church's ministry center. Indeed, the very day I came to view the damage, the pastor of the church found a suitable replacement just down the road. Prayer once again changes things. Too often I forget that no matter what the circumstances look like, God is in control! For those who love Him, He always works things out for our good (Rom. 8:28).

However, I believe I can take an even bigger lesson from my before and after visits. When my family and I first came out, I was completely taken with the house and the yard; I felt that having such a place as my own would make my life all the better. Oh, how misplaced my faith was.

In just a matter of seconds, all the human effort that went into building the house and maintaining it and the property over the years, vanished as the tornado cut its path of destruction. By relying on something temporary, something earthly and not eternal, I was settling for less, but more significantly, I was cheating God out of Glory.

My faith should be in Him, no matter where I'm living, whether it's a shack or a mansion. If I rely on Him and trust His ways, I can never go wrong. Certainly, circumstances come and go, and seasons change (Ecc. 3:1), but God does not. He is my provider, my rock, and my one in all. No tornado, hurricane, or other force can ever take that away.

I believe that is what He showed me when I came back to visit the house. Whatever we rely on here on earth is subject to leave us at any time, without warning. We should never place our security on something other than God. He demands we rely on Him, and if we don't, we're only hurting ourselves.

YOU CAN REACH MR. DRYSDALE AT: mrdrysdale@insightbb.com