I read Robert Murray M'Cheyne this week. And here is what he said: "You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm."7

This is a lesson I am still learning. Maybe you are too. But our Savior is a gentle instructor. He is careful to awaken and come to us and show us His power over the storms. I want to share with you a song I wrote for this message. It is called, "Let Me Trust Your Sovereign Grace" and I pray it is of ministry to you.

When the wind and waves of life

Drove my soul to find relief

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I was guided by the storm

To find Jesus underneath

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You've made

I will cling to Calvary's place

I will trust Your Sovereign Grace

Though Your presence with me goes

I seem to still be tossed and turned

By an unseen enemy

And I know I need to learn

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You've made

I will cling to Calvary's place

I will trust Your Sovereign Grace

And when life is finally o'er

And I stand before You, Lord

I'll see the storms that stirred despair

Were the winds that blew me there

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You've made

I will cling to Calvary's place

I will trust Your Sovereign Grace

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You've made

Let me cling to Calvary's place

Let me trust Your Sovereign Grace

Let this passage now lead us to the stern, where Jesus is, not sleeping now, but interceding so that you can.

Let us pray.

Prayer of Commitment

Our Father, lead us to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Lead us to rest in Your sovereignty for the storms we may face in this life. Help us to be still in our lives and know that You are God. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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Michael Milton is Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, TN.

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NOTES:

1. Kirk Byron Jones, Rest in the Storm : Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2001).

2. Ibid. 10.

3. Ibid. 55.

4. John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 132

5. This quote came from Jones, Rest in the Storm, i. See Richard A. Swenson, The Overload Syndrome : Learning to Live within Your Limits (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1998).

6. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, "After Ten Years," in Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1971), 16-17 (this may be accessed on http://www.kairosjournal.org/document.aspx?DocumentID=187&QuadrantID=3).

7. See David F. Haslam, "Robert Murray M‘Cheyne (1813 - 1843)" at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/d.haslam/mccheyne/cheadle/RMMCSSDFH.PDF (accessed on August 25, 2005).