"The Power Of The Storm"

2nd Corinthians 12: 9-10

 

Over  the past fifteen  years Kitty and I have purchased many  of the top-selling Christian videos, and they all have the same name on them - Bill Gaither.  We also  have a few of the Gaither Kids Video.  Our granddaughter, Lauren, likes "The Homecoming Kids Camp Out." In this video Vestal Goodman sings several songs.  On one visit, Lauren asked to see the "Camp Out Video" with "Sister Vestal" singing.

 

Bill Gaither has assembled some of Gospel music’s legends for what he calls “homecoming” musical gatherings.  And as the videos have grown in popularity, some of yesterday’s Gospel legends have become legends to a new generation.  One of those is/was a pillar of Gospel music, Vestal Goodman.  Belting out her songs with her big hankie in her hand, she uses one of the most powerful voices in her field. 

 

But, according to her husband Howard, it wasn’t always that way.  In fact, he said that when they were first traveling together from revival to revival, Vestal had just this quiet little voice, which is pretty hard to imagine today.  But he said something happened the day a storm blew through the camper park where they were staying and that storm destroyed most of what they owned.  That night, at the revival service, Vestal got up to sing as usual – except it wasn’t usual - no sound system.   Suddenly, for some unexplainable reason – no doubt, supernatural – Sister Vestal  belted out her song with a power and authority,  neither she nor her husband had ever heard – and that has been her trademark ever since.

 

What Vestal Goodman experienced the day the storm wiped out much of her world is exactly what millions of believers have experienced in their lives.  It may be what God is up to in your life right now.  Here’s God’s method of operating or functioning.  He uses the storm in your life to bring out something more powerful than you’ve ever experienced before.

 

It happened to the Apostle Paul, as explained in II Corinthians 12:9-10.  He’s talking about the upheaval, the torment in his life from what he refers to as his “thorn in the flesh.”  Three times Paul begged God to move this storm out of his life.  Scripture goes on to say, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

 

Paul said it was in his times of struggle and loss and frustration that God’s power was unleashed the most dramatically in his life.  That is the repeated experience of God’s children through the years.  If a storm is blowing through your life right now, if it’s doing a lot of damage, God wants to use this upheaval to unleash His power in your life, perhaps as never before.  So often in the ways of God, the breaking of His child is actually the making of His child.

 

Why?  Because when the bottom drops out, you have perhaps your greatest opportunity to really find out what God can do . . . to clean out your spiritual closets of the junk that’s been holding back God’s blessing . . . to develop a new compassion, a new tenderness . . . and to have the kind of platform for representing Jesus that only suffering can give you.

 

The storm that seems to be costing you so much right now – it may very well be God’s means of bringing out something more powerful than you’ve ever experienced before.  And here’s the good news, long after the storm is gone, you are going to be singing one incredibly powerful song!

 

><))):>  In "HIS" Service

            Bro. Roy