A perfect storm—either plain old weather-related phenomena or somebody’s real life events. The weather story seems like a great script for a blockbuster movie, but the real life story not so much—especially if it’s your real life.

 

I had a perfect storm year a while back. Happenings just kept piling up in ways I couldn’t control. I worked hard and stayed busy, but sometimes realized I was really only an observer in God’s bigger picture.

 

I learned it’s possible that, at the end of the day, the outcome of a perfect storm might not be the worst thing.

 

John Piper, in The Pleasures of God, shares a wonderful analogy explaining the fear of the Lord. He suggests imagining hiking across a glacier and getting caught in a huge storm. Then seeking shelter in a cleft where you can safely observe the storm:

 

Even though (you are) secure, the awesome might of the storm rages on, and you watch it with a kind of trembling pleasure as it surges out across the distant glaciers. Not everything we call fear vanishes from your heart, only the life-threatening part. There remains the trembling, the awe, the wonder, the feeling that you would never want to tangle with such a storm or be the adversary of such a power.

 

Exhilarating.

 

In my perfect storm year, I did my best to make the outcomes different, but they weren’t. It bemused me that, even though there were a lot of unknowns, I wasn’t afraid.

 

So.

 

I continue to learn new lessons and I don’t think storms are very scary anymore—because I know God is doing for me what he did for Moses:

 

…I will hide you

   in the crevice of the rock

       and cover you with my hand…

Exodus 33:22