Surviving Life's Storms

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. (Ps. 62:1-2)

​So often when we go through difficult times in life our first instinct is to react, to do, to begin figuring out how to solve the problem.  Yet when David found himself going through turmoil, through some sort of tribulation, he writes things like Psalm 62:1, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”  His soul waits in silence for God.  He remains still.  He focuses on God.  He goes to God in prayer and through his word.  He finds rest and peace and comfort in knowing that his salvation, his rescue, comes from God.  It’s the imagery of be out in the middle of the Pacific, stranded on a boat whose engine has died leaving you adrift at sea.  But then being told over the radio the U.S. Navy knows your location and is on its way.  The fretting and worrying would immediately cease.  You might even decide to make lunch, lay out on the deck.  There is nothing to do now but simply relax and wait for them to arrive.  David is so confident that God is looking out for him, that God will take care of him, that he simply “waits in silence.”  How is this possible?  “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken” (v.2).  David sees himself as standing on the Rock of Gibraltar while the storm rages around him.  Yes, there is a storm raging, the wind is howling, the sea is pounding, but David is standing on the solid rock who is God.  Thus, he will not be “greatly shaken.”  He might be a little shaken, as much as we would be if we were standing on the Rock of Gibraltar in the middle of a raging storm.  The wind is sure to move us some and make it difficult to stand, but so long as we are standing on that rock we will survive the storm.  Thus, so long as we are standing on the rock of God, the winds of life may pummel us and push us around a bit, but we will survive the storm.