The Perfect Storm

Good morning and welcome to worship today. I know many of us were hoping to be back in the building for worship today. This is certainly a difficult time for us all as we face this pandemic and the repercussions of it. Virtual worship is just that, it is virtual… and we want to be in person, in the building. Trust me, I get that. That is what I want as well. But I also want us to be safe, to hear from the experts and the wisdom of our Leadership Team. The Leadership Team will be meeting again tomorrow evening to discuss the next steps of when and what it will look like as we return to in-person worship. And as always, we will continue our online presence so those who need to worship virtually can still join us on YouTube and Facebook.

I also want to take just a moment to lift up our friend Lisa Streckert to you. Lisa is in good spirits, I spoke to her Friday and she is doing well in these circumstances. That said, she and the family are in need of your prayer and support. The prognosis for cancer is not what we had hoped. But, Lisa feels your prayers, and God is walking this journey with her. I know there are many others in our church who are in need of prayer as well during this difficult time, so let us pause now and lift our voices to God in prayer.

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Today, we are in our second week of our series Faultlines. In Geology, a fault line is a seam between techtonic plates, a crack in the earths crust where pressure is relieved as the Earth’s crust moves. It is at these points of stress and pressure that we see growth and change on the earths surface. The earthquakes and tsunamis we experience are the growing pains of a changing world. We enjoy the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the splendor of places like Victoria Falls, and the intrigue of Lock Ness because of movements on fault lines.

In that same way, we have fault lines in our life. We have points of stress and pressure that move us into change, that transform us from who we were to who we are called to be.

Last week, we looked at the Faultline of A Call. If you recall, we shared together that each of us has a call on our life, a purpose if you will, and we will be restless until we answer and accept that call. The Call isn’t always to full-time vocational ministry or as a missionary to Africa or the Amazon.... some times your call is to bring God into the midst of your insurance industry… it is to bring God into the politics of your life… It is bringing God with you into the workplace or the book club. What ever your call is, it always includes making new disciples of Jesus Christ… If we aren’t reaching new people for Christ, then we aren’t answering our Call.

This week we are going to look at something a little different. This week, we will be considering A Crisis. Crises are those times in our lives when it seems everything goes wrong. Sometimes we might call it “The Perfect Storm.”

In Acts 27 we find a story of a real storm described in vivid detail. It reads almost like a plot to a movie as Paul faces what could easily be pure disaster. Paul has been in the beautiful port city of Caesarea Maritima by the Mediterranean Sea. He has been on trial in front of Festus and Agrippa where they were “almost persuaded” to follow Christ. Since Paul had appealed to Caesar, he is to be taken by boat to Rome. Paul along with other prisoners were put under the supervision of a Centurion named Julius and the boarded a ship heading North. We’ll pick up in verse 9.

The New Revised Standard Version Paul Sails for Rome

9 Since much time had been lost and sailing was now dangerous, because even the Fast had already gone by, Paul advised them, 10 saying, “Sirs, I can see that the voyage will be with danger and much heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” 11 But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said. 12 Since the harbor was not suitable for spending the winter, the majority was in favor of putting to sea from there, on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, where they could spend the winter. It was a harbor of Crete, facing southwest and northwest.

The Storm at Sea

13 When a moderate south wind began to blow, they thought they could achieve their purpose; so they weighed anchor and began to sail past Crete, close to the shore. 14 But soon a violent wind, called the northeaster, rushed down from Crete.

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They called it A Perfect Storm. It was only a Category 1, something residents of the Texas Coast would usually ride out, watching the action from their porch while drinking a Margarita… But the Halloween Storm of 1991 was not normal Category 1 hurricane. An unusual set of circumstances came together to create the perfect storm. An early Cold Front swept down from Canada over the Atlantic Ocean. A Ridge of high pressure sat along the Appalachians pushed the storm south… All the while the remnants of Hurricane Grace were pushing North. The cold air from the North, the Warm air from the south… the pressure difference between the high pressure area to the west and the combining of the two low pressure storms over the water created a pressure difference that, combined with the 70-75 mph winds, created a deadly storm with a recorded wave height of over 100’. The 2000 movie, The Perfect Storm, chronicled the events of the storm and the loss the lives of 6 fishermen and 1 Coast Guardsman.

A perfect storm isn’t your normal thunderstorm. It is a convergence of what would be several manageable events into one super storm. The first recorded use of the word in the US was the 1936 Hurricane that hit Port Arthur, TX causing massive flooding. The news reports showed that there were a series of 7 events that came together causing a storm that could not have been worse.

Most of us will never experience a storm of this magnitude. We may see hurricanes and tornadoes… but not a storm like the one that hit the NorthEast in 1991, or the storm that hit Port Arthur in 1936.

We use the term to describe events in our life too. Usually it has something to do with out day.... a bad morning, followed by a meeting with the boss… maybe a lunch order didn’t go well, and then we have a fender bender on the way home, and we might call that a Perfect Storm for a bad day. That’s just a bad day. A perfect storm is a confluence of events in our life that change us, that transform us. They are a set of circumstances that come together and from that moment on, things will be different.

Here’s an example. Bob was in his 40’s and active. He had had an awesome day and had just laid down in bed with his wife of about 3 years. Shelly heard him make an odd sound after he laid down, and she asked him what was wrong… she quickly knew. Bob was having a massive heart attack. Shelly’s son came in and started CPR. Bob’ daughter called 911, and they were all praying.

I didn’t find out about the heart attack until the next morning when I got a call from one of their small group members… their small group had been been with her all night. By the time I arrived the next morning, Bob was in a Coma. Things looked like they might improve, and we prayed. We talked about how God heals through medicine, and miracles, we talked about the healing of enduring and the ultimate healing.

At some point in the day, we realized that Bob’s previous wife was on her way, presumably to take one of the kids back with her, not something Bob or the family wanted. Another one of the kids discovered that he was not going into the military for medical reasons… This was a perfect storm. This family could not come through this without a change.

Bob didn’t improve, eventually the family had to make end of life the decision. They chose to donate his organs so others could have life. I sat with the family as they said their good byes and the team came in to begin the process to share his life with others.

That was a perfect storm. A confluence of events that change everything. It is a faultline… and it transforms us. I bet we could go through a list of people we know facing just such a faultline, a perfect storm in their life, or maybe in your life. It may be medical like this… It may have something to do with COVID-19, It may be a job loss, the loss of a loved one, a divorce… Each of these can be a perfect storm, a storm that couldn’t get any worse.

Any time we face a crisis like this, any time we face a perfect storm, there are certain characteristics present, and we can see them in Paul’s journey to Rome.

Expectations. We expect life to have a certain resiliency. We face a challenge, we get over it, life goes back to normal. We strive for normal. A simple example that things don’t always go back to normal after a crisis, I remember walking to the gate to see my dad fly off on a business trip. I remember flying without taking my shoes off… but today we live in a new normal. As we read Paul’s story, We see this as well. They were facing bad weather, they knew it was getting dangerous to travel. Verse 13 reminds us, “When a moderate south wind began to blow, they thought they could achieve their purpose; so they weighed anchor and began to sail past Crete, close to the shore.” Even though Paul had warned the Centurion and the crew, they had an expectation that things would work out fine.

The second is our faith. We know that God is good and we believe that God wants to protect our normal. That God wants what we want. The problem is, sometimes we want what isn’t best for us. Sometimes it takes a crisis to loosen our grip on what we want, in order to open our hands to what God has for us. In the case of Paul’s journey to Rome, the crew had faith in their Captain. They had faith in their boat. They had faith in everything, except the message of God that had been shared with them.

It was in the midst of their expectations and their faith that the loss occured. Follwoing the story, we read in verse 14-16, But soon a violent wind, called the northeaster, rushed down from Crete. Since the ship was caught and could not be turned head-on into the wind, we gave way to it and were driven. By running under the lee of a small island called Cauda we were scarcely able to get the ship’s boat under control. AS the storm continued to get worse, they undergirded… they passed ropes under the ship and wrapped them around the ship to literally hold the ship together. The next day things weren’t any better so they started throwing things overboard to lighten the load. They thew out their anchor to slow the ship down. They knew the ship was lost, but they were doing everything they could to save it, and in the process, they lost the ships tack, and they lost the cargo.

Every loss we experience in life is tied to other losses. We lose our job, but the bigger loss is our self esteem. We lose our marriage, but the bigger loss is security. Sometimes the second loss is worse than the first.

This loss leads to the next element of a perfect storm in our lives, futility. Nothing we do seems to matter. The crew had done everything they could, but they were in the middle of a typhoon. Nothing they could do would save the ship. Verse 20 says it best… When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. Maybe you’ve been there. The doctor says, “It’s cancer, but we can treat it.” So you do what they say, but nothing seems to matter. The cancer grows and moves through the stages… Perhaps you can handle the diagnosis. you can handle facing a treatment… there’s still something you can do… but then there is the realization that you really aren’t in control.... and that is the biggest loss of them all.

The next element is fate. Steve DeNeff puts it this way, “Fate occurs when the future collides with the present. When it becomes apparent that things will be this way from now on.” (64) Often, this future is a vision that is far from the normal we ever dreamed… Our loved one has Alzheimer’s and can’t remember who we are… He was active and laughing with us a week ago, but now he’s gone… A month ago I could walk… but now I’m in this chair. For the crew of Paul’s ship, their fate was that they were going to crash. They all new it. There was no way out.

There is one more final element of the perfect storm in our life, the collateral damage. The crisis happens, but it is all the other adjustments in life that make it the perfect storm. These are the things that compound the crisis. It’s the medical bills… It’s the loss of friends after a divorce.... It’s the hassle of finding a new job… it’s the expense of the treatment...

The perfect storm is never an isolated incident, but it is all the things that lead up to the crisis and all the things that come out of it… each individual thing intensifying and intensified by the other.

In the mist of it all, we ask one question over and over.... “Why?” As though there is an answer. As though, if we can just understand why, then we will be able to make sense of it all. “What did I do to make her leave me?”… “Why did he pull out in front of us?”… “Why did I get the cancer and she didn’t?” From the question why we often try to blame others, if it’s someones fault then maybe we can fix it.

The problem with the question why is that we are never satisfied with the answers. It doesn’t fix anything… and if we keep asking why, we get stuck, and we will never move beyond the crisis to the creation. We never get beyond the tragedy to the transformation.

This is what I want us to learn from Paul’s journey to Rome. IN the midst of the Crisis, Paul speaks up and shares what only the soul can know. Beginning in verse 22. I urge you now to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For last night there stood by me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.’ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some island.”

Paul was living in the faith we talked about last Fall when we talked about the SoulShift from Ask to Listen. You remember:

“Faith doesn’t speak things into existence. It simply sees what is already in existence, though still unseen to those who live by sight alone. Faith sees a world that runs alongside this world, and it lives according to what we see in both worlds. Faith sees through the eyes of the soul.”

Crises, the storms of life, are great places for a SoulShift to happen. These are faultlines that rattle and shake us so that we can let go of what is good and accept what is best.

If you remember the crew… They threw over all their gear. It seemed all was lost. They had to let go of everything. but in the end, it was the few pieces of they clung to that got them safely through the storm.

You see, they still ran aground. The ship was still destroyed, but they were spared. And as they floated in the stormy waters, it was plank from the ship, or a box of the cargo, or a mast of the ship that they held to that got them safely to shore.

When we are in the midst of a storm, we will have to let go of some things. When we are living through the crisis of a loss, we will have to let go of things, Maybe it is the loss of a parent or a friend… as we let them go, we feel so empty, so alone. But God knows about that emptiness. God knows about that loneliness.

You remember my friend Shelly that lost her husband Bob. Well, it was hard. It was a crisis of crises. The family hurt. The family struggled. but they stayed together. They had to reconsider their view of God… one of their questions was “Why did God take Bob from us?” They had to wrestle with that and come to understand, it wasn’t God’s choice for Bob to die, but It was God’s choice to receive Bob into heaven. It was God’s choice to walk through the storm with the family.

They came through the storm and they were stronger because of it. Today, the kids are making families of their own. They are working their way through school. And Shelly is in love again with a wonderful man who understands her love for Bob.

In years past, people have built homes on shifting soil like any other home, but today, whether it’s on clay, or earthquake areas, or seashores, they are built different. Today, they dig deep peers into the soil, digging down to bedrock, and they build the house on top of that.

Our piers in life are those things we do to build our relationship with God and others. They are the deep foundations that hold us in place as the storms rage. It’s reading and studying God’s word. It’s spending time in prayer - talking and listening to God, and maybe more of the later. It is building Christian relationships with others around us.

When we build our foundation of these things, the storms can come and strip away our expectations. They can change our normal. Remember, it was never God’s intention to protect our normal… It is God’s intention that we become who we were created to be. And that is what can happen when we live on the fault lines of life.