You know the drill—every family does it a little differently, but we are usually asked to think of one thing we are thankful for on Thanksgiving. In our family the kids take Polaroid pictures of everyone and paste them on a paper leaf with a few words of thanksgiving. It all goes on a little tree that stays up through Christmas. We don’t get too deep—family, food, fun, and the Eagles (if they are winning). But as I look around, I know there is much left unsaid.
Because when you get any group together, you can be sure that some are living in the middle of a storm. There are all different kinds of storms aren’t there? Illness, grief, relationship struggles, money problems, old age—to be human is to live in a storm. And it’s tough to be truly thankful in any storm. That’s why we stick to generic lists of things we know we should be thankful for (and on our best days we are) and try to ignore or compartmentalize the storms that leave us by turns frustrated and fearful.
I’m living right now with someone who is experiencing the storm of old age. My mother, Rose Marie Miller, is almost 101 and at that age, there is not a lot that is easy in life. She struggles to get up and down the stairs and also struggles to just get up and down from her chair! But despite those struggles, she hasn’t given up on life, and she hasn’t given up on following God. She still works full-time as a missionary and is determined to get back to it after we have a “little” party for her birthday that includes many of her children (5), grandchildren (24), and great grands (62 and counting).
What’s her secret to a life of purpose and meaning—and surviving the constant storms of life? Jesus tells us the secret in his parable about the house on the rock and the house on the sand. The wise person builds their house on a rock, and when the wind, the rain, and the floods come the house does not fall. It has a foundation that can’t be shaken. But the foolish person builds their house on the sand. That foundation collapses with a great crash in the wind and the rain.
What is your foundation like? We don’t really know until the storms of life show us the cracks. That is something about a storm we can be thankful for. Were we building our lives on people’s approval? Being healthy? Having healthy children? A spouse that would never leave us? On no one we love dying? A good job? Enough money to get everything we want? A successful business and/or ministry? Or even just no family tensions at Thanksgiving? It does seem that each storm is tailor made to expose the state of our foundation.
But the important thing is not that storms will come, or even the cracks we see in our foundation when they do come. The important thing is who or what we turn to in the storm. We can try our best to figure things out ourselves, escape in our own time-tested ways, take to our beds in despair, or lash out in anger, but the only way to life and peace is to turn to Jesus, our Rock. He is the one thing that cannot be shaken. When our lives are built on him, we can and do feel shaky, but we cannot be shaken.
Jesus’s disciples show us the way forward when they are in an actual storm on the Lake of Galilee. Jesus is sleeping on a pillow while the storm rages and the boat fills with water. How they felt about this can be heard in their words to Jesus, “Don’t you care?” That also describes many conversations I have had with Jesus in the middle of a storm. But honestly telling Jesus how they felt about him sleeping while the storm raged, was just what was needed. And probably what Jesus was waiting for.
Jesus wakes up, says, “Peace! Be still!” and a great calm descends. Now the disciples really are terrified because who can stop nature in its tracks except for its Creator? They realize they are in a boat with the one true God. Their well-founded fear of dying in the storm is replaced with a holy fear and awe of the living God. This is the only kind of fear that can bring peace to anxious, worried, terrified hearts. This is not anxiety—this is the world being reordered with our God who made us and rules the storms, now the center and the foundation of our lives. This is awe, wonder, and worship for the living God. When we see Jesus as he really is, we worship him, love him, and trust him to hold us fast and speak peace in every storm that threatens to undo us.
The disciples didn’t yet know that a storm of sin and sorrow would take Jesus’s life on the cross. They didn’t yet know that he would give his life for their lives. They didn’t know that death could not hold him, and he would rise from the dead. But they did know who to build their lives on. Along the way they found out that Jesus was holding them fast. He would not let them slip away from him. Even when their faith almost failed, he remained their Rock.
So what do we have to be thankful for this week? I think the Sunday school answer—Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so—is all that is needed and it would be easy to add to our thanksgiving leaves. It’s Jesus who is holding us steady through all of our storms. It’s Jesus who gives us a word of hope for the angry, anxious, hopeless world. It’s Jesus who gives us hope for today. Come what may, he is our Rock and Redeemer.
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD
No one likes to feel weak. Just thinking about our inadequate resources can fill us with fear and hopelessness. But Rose Marie Miller has a different perspective. For her true weakness is a gift born out of a deep sense of need, it drives us to Christ and unleashes all the redeeming energy of God’s grace in our lives and others.
