Last Sunday our two girls showed up and we continued to talk about storms.  We had already said that it was necessary to rehearse ahead of time how we would respond to trials in our life and that brought to my mind the words to this song by Matt Redman:

Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

 

Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed Be Your name

 

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

 

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

 

Blessed be Your name

When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'

Blessed be Your name

 

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there's pain in the offering

Blessed be Your name

We talked about another reason for trials:  to bring God glory.  This brings to mind the blind man in John 9.  Religious leaders ask Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?"  Jesus tells them that neither one sinned but that the blindness was to bring God glory.  And this happened when Jesus healed him.   We see it in so many other examples too:  Joseph, Daniel, the 3 Hebrews in the fiery furnace, Job and many others.  They had to go through the trial to get to the point that God received the glory.  Very few of us want the trials.  Even Jesus had His human side that thought about avoiding trials.  But look at what He says in John 12:27-28. "Right now I am storm-tossed.  And what am I going to say? 'Father, get me out of this'?  No, this is why I came in the first place.  I'll say, 'Father, put your glory on display.'"

Along these same lines, I love Psalm 46:1-3 (MSG).  "God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.  We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains."  What an attitude to aspire to!