El­der Arnold Gopeesingh

“And, be­hold, there arose a great tem­pest in the sea, in­so­much that the ship was cov­ered with the waves: but He was asleep. And His dis­ci­ples came to Him, and awoke Him, say­ing, Lord, save us: we per­ish. And He saith un­to them, Why are ye fear­ful, O ye of lit­tle faith? Then He arose, and re­buked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men mar­velled, say­ing, what man­ner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!” (Matthew 8:23 to 27).

I be­lieve Je­sus’ dis­ci­ples were amazed. Here they are con­front­ed with a storm, and Je­sus was fast asleep in the boat. Now, I do not think that He was not aware of what was tak­ing place; af­ter all, ac­cord­ing to the scrip­ture, it is said, “in­so­much that the ship was cov­ered with the waves.” There is a les­son to be learnt here, taught by our Lord and Sav­iour Je­sus Christ, and it is this: “What­ev­er storm that you are go­ing through, there is still a safe place, one of peace.”

The best of us will en­counter storms in our life­time, but more im­por­tant is the way we han­dle them when they do show up. These storms can vary from per­son to per­son; for one, it may be a health is­sue, an­oth­er a bro­ken re­la­tion­ship, chil­dren’s chal­lenges, fam­i­ly mat­ters, and this list can go on and on. Tri­als in life can vis­it the home of any per­son, and mon­ey, pow­er, sta­tus in life, and cre­den­tials do not scare away the storms of life. I have seen in my life­time and heard many speak as if to say that they are well se­cured for life, on­ly to re­ceive a bad doc­tor’s re­port, and with all they pos­sess, could not change any­thing.

We are liv­ing in a time which is filled with un­cer­tain­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the world in gen­er­al. The war in the Mid­dle East is not help­ing in any way, and many coun­tries are go­ing through a se­ri­ous storm. There is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that we al­so in the Caribbean can be im­pact­ed. As I look at my open­ing scrip­ture, I am en­cour­aged as I med­i­tate on it. Per­mit me to share briefly three things from it that I be­lieve can be a bless­ing to you. I strong­ly be­lieve that what­ev­er you are go­ing through at this present mo­ment, you can still find peace.

First­ly, the pres­ence of Christ with you. Some­times we are tempt­ed to ask the ques­tion, where is God in what I am go­ing through? Je­sus was right there with His dis­ci­ples, for we read in Isa­iah 43:2-3: “When thou pass­est through the wa­ters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not over­flow thee: when thou walk­est through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; nei­ther shall the flame kin­dle up­on thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Is­rael, thy Sav­iour: I gave Egypt for thy ran­som, Ethiopia and Se­ba for thee.”

The sec­ond thing I no­ticed was that the dis­ci­ples placed their gaze on Je­sus Christ. We read, “And His dis­ci­ples came to Him, and awoke Him, say­ing, Lord, save us: we per­ish,” they recog­nised who could save them. We live in a world where there are many voic­es fight­ing for cen­tre stage, so be very care­ful whom you are putting your trust in. The Psalmist said in Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in char­i­ots, and some in hors­es: but we will re­mem­ber the name of the LORD our God.”

The third thing from my open­ing scrip­ture that I would like to share with you is the fact that Je­sus re­spond­ed to the cry of the dis­ci­ples, “Then He arose, and re­buked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.” God is not against you, and while at times He may not an­swer right away, that does not mean that He has not heard you. “De­lay is not de­nial,” for at times God may al­low some­thing for a par­tic­u­lar rea­son.

The prophet Isa­iah wrote in Isa­iah 55:8-11: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nei­ther are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heav­ens are high­er than the earth, so are my ways high­er than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heav­en, and re­tur­neth not thith­er, but wa­tereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sow­er, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not re­turn un­to me void, but it shall ac­com­plish that which I please, and it shall pros­per in the thing where­to I sent it.”

I en­cour­age you, what­ev­er you are go­ing through, it is God’s de­sire that you have the vic­to­ry.

Put your con­fi­dence and trust in Je­sus Christ.

May God rich­ly bless you.