What to do in a storm

Be of good cheer: for I believe God.

We want to believe for all the good things, don’t we? The loving husband, the healthy babies, the happy life. Maybe a white picket fence if that’s your thing.

But this statement came out of Paul’s mouth after he’d been falsely accused, passed from one Roman ruler to another, kept in various prisons, always with the chief priests and scribes trying to have him put to death, in the middle of a wild storm at sea.

On the way to Rome to be judged by Caesar, the ship he and a bunch of other prisoners were in was caught in a storm so big it had a name—Euroclydon. It was so bad they were throwing equipment overboard trying to make the ship lighter. They finally gave up trying to steer and just let the storm drive the boat toward land. The Bible says: “… all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.”

After the third day of this, Paul said, “Hold up, guys. The angel of God appeared to me tonight and told me God would make sure we all lived so I could be brought before Caesar.” Then he said that famous line, “Be of good cheer: for I believe God …”

I’m sure they thought he was crazy, especially when the storm went on and on and on.

After fourteen nights of this—stop and try to imagine being in these conditions for two very long weeks—they decided to try launching a lifeboat. Paul (still a prisoner) told them not to, that they would just be beaten to death against the rocks. Good point.

Instead, Paul told them they should eat.

What?

Remember the intro reel for the TV show Gilligan’s Island? When the song gets to the part that says,

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The Minnow would be lost. The Minnow would be lost.

Do you remember that part? Dark, lightning flashing, thunder rolling, wind howling, waves taller than the boat and water crashing over the sides and bridge (that’s the very top part of the boat where the captain sits), and the boat looking like a tiny toy in the middle of a South Pacific storm. It’s terrifying to imagine, but that’s exactly what was happening in Paul’s storm. They were literally hanging on for their lives, and Paul told them they should eat.

He said, “… this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.” Not a hair?

I can hear the crew thinking, “What kind of nutbag are you? Don’t you see the storm raging all around us?”

But Paul didn’t wait for a response. He just took some bread, “gave thanks to God in the presence of them all,” and started to eat. And the first miracle happened. The Bible says “Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat.”

So they all ate, then they dumped everything else into the sea to make the ship as light as possible.

At daylight—remember, it’s still storming like crazy—they saw a shore with a little creek and decided to try to drive the ship into it. So they let go the rudder and hoisted the mainsail and hoped for the best.

The bow of the ship ran aground before they got to the creek while the stern was being beaten by the waves and broken apart. Obviously they weren’t going to make land or creek.

At this point, the soldiers wanted to kill all the prisoners lest any of them escape and the soldiers lose their literal heads, but the big boss wanted to make sure Paul was saved alive, so he told everyone to jump and swim if they knew how, otherwise hang on to a board or piece of broken ship and make it to land if they were able.

And they all did—apparently with every one of their hairs intact, just as God had said.

What an exciting story, huh? Sometimes I think I have storms in my life, and I do. It doesn’t help to compare my storms to someone else’s. We all have them and they’re all hard. But I noticed that in the middle of a very long, very scary, very hard storm, Paul did three things:

He remembered whose he was.

In verse 23, he told the men, “For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve …”

“Whose I am.” Paul knew who he belonged to. He remembered whose hand held him every single day, no matter kind of storm he was in.

He believed God.

Can you even imagine being Paul? His storm started long before he got on that boat and he never knew which prison he wasn’t going to come out of alive. It went on for years. Yet he believed God. He knew God had a purpose for his life, just like he has a purpose for yours, and that God was going to see it through.

He gave thanks for what he did have.

In the middle of a storm when they were all likely exhausted from “hanging in there,” Paul had bread—probably pretty soggy bread—and he thanked God for it. You know, God never tells us to be thankful FOR all things, but he does tell us to be thankful IN all things. Paul might not have been grateful for his circumstances, but he was thankful for God’s provision in them. If we have nothing else in this world, we have Jesus, and that’s enough.

We all have storms. God tells us that in this life we will have tribulation; that’s a given. But we can always remember whose we are, believe he will do what he says he will do, and thank him for his provision in them.