WHEN THE WALLS GET BLOWN OFF

We spent Friday night huddled in our downstairs powder room, kids wearing their bike helmet, taking our cues from the blaring tornado siren outside and riding out the storms.

The tornado steered clear of our area, but an elementary school the next town over wasn't so lucky.

News reports showed footage of the damage done to the school building, and I was intrigued by one scene I saw:

The roaring cyclone smashed into a classroom wall, reducing it to a pile of broken cinder blocks. But, interestingly, everything inside the room appeared completely unaffected. Books were still perfectly arranged on bookshelves, desks remained undisturbed. Based on the ferocity of the storm that came against the outside of the building, you could reasonably expect a disheveled mess on the inside.

But it wasn't. It was totally undisturbed instead.

Don't you want to be that way? I want to be that way--that when the storms rage and hammer against me, peace will be prevalent inside.

I'm not there.

But I'm more there than I used to be.

Storms are inevitable. We can expect them. "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Peter 4:12). Hard times are par for the course. But the next verse puts them in perspective: "But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed." The peace of Jesus Christ that rules in our hearts? It STEADIES us--because we eagerly anticipate the revelation of His glory when we suffer.

Glorious God, let us be PEACEFUL people because we know Your power prevails, no matter how things look along the way. Convince us that You are constantly pursuing Your glory and our good even when the hardest things hit us. And WHEN (not if) the storms rage, let us be found undisturbed inside because Your peace is ruling in our hearts. Amen.