Storms

We had a good class on Sunday.  We had 5 students, but Phil wasn't there because he had gone to take Kathryn back to the airport in Nashville.  We showed the Nooma film, Rain.  It did a wonderful job introducing the topic of how to respond to storms in our lives.

We identified some reasons we have storms.  Sometimes God uses our distress to just get our attention and to get us to seek Him.  At other times He uses our troubles to correct and discipline us.  He wants to purify us and get us to repent of sin.  Many times our storms are used to build our character.  They develop patience and perseverance and shape us to make us more like Christ.

Even though they didn't say a lot, I know that some of the students who were there are experiencing storms right now.  They need our prayers.  But we also talked about the fact that if we're not in a storm right now, we will be soon enough.  Storms come; it's a sure thing.  And we need to rehearse ahead of time what our response will be when they come.  God wants us to rejoice in these trials.  He wants us to recognize that He is at work and He is there with us in the storm.

There's more to say about storms but we'll save that for the next lesson.