Drowning and God's Brilliance

One of the things I love about our new church is that every Sunday, they publish in the bulletin, the scripture lessons for the next week. That way I can read them each day and guess what the pastor might preach on- usually I'm wrong! But that just goes to show you that the word is alive and speaks to each of us differently.

This week, I'm reading Psalm 29, Jonah 2:1-9, Romans 9:1-5 and Matthew 14: 22-33. There's a lot about water this week. Jonah's praying from the depths of the ocean, Jesus is walking on the storm tossed sea, and Psalm 29 mentions floods and thunder. I haven't quite figured out how Paul's burden for the Israelites ties in to all this water (Romans 9). But maybe I'm just overly sensitive to the sensation of drowning lately!

One verse particularly caught my attention this morning; Psalm 29:3

God thunders across the waters,
Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness—
God, across the flood waters. (The Message)

The whole rest of the psalm speaks of God's thunder and power. But what caught my attention here was the reference to "flood waters". Sure, there's power in flood waters but they bring such devastation, hopelessness, destruction and chaos. And God's face, his countenance, streams brilliantly across this devastating chaos- this depressing, vast hopelessness.

I guess I found it encouraging to know that God could overpower the chaos in my life and shine on it, turning it into a thing of his beauty. Somehow that's even more amazing than seeing him thunder across deserts or set oaks to dancing.

So I'm praying for his beauty to shine across the flood waters of my life and waiting for the strength and peace that he promises.