God, You have the power to change what I cannot, and I trust You with the impossible parts of my life. Help me to see where You’re already working, even when things feel stuck or broken. Calm the storms in me or around me, and lead me to hope again. Thank You for being the God who makes a way where there seems to be none.
Hi everybody, Pastor Chuck Allen here with another weekday podcast and thanks so much for joining me. Where today we want to jump into when nature seems unchangeable. Yet if you're listening to the Work weekday podcast for one of the first times, I'm just really glad you've joined me. If you've been listening all along for these years, thank you so much for joining. Bobby and I have recorded almost 3,000 of these things and we want it to be a cup of encouragement for you each weekday where we take just a piece of scripture and a little commentary and give you hopefully just a little encouragement to make it through your day. I was thinking about something that really has been weighing on me. We live in a world where we're constantly promised transformation, change for the good, right? Self help books, conferences, latest wellness trends, life hacks. But there's this profound truth that I think that we ought to grasp today. Only God can change nature. Take a moment and think about it. For all of our technological advancements, weather predictions, genetic engineering, supersonic travel, they're fundamental laws of nature that we just cannot alter. We can't command the rain to fall, we can't make the sun shine, we can't stop earthquakes or tsunamis or wildfires. And we certainly can't create something from, well, nothing but God can. And that's not just ancient history. All it's present reality. I love the passage in Genesis where it simply says, then God said, let there be light. And there was light. Just like that. No complicated process, no years of research and development. God spoke bamboo, there it was. Or think about Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are terrified, certain they're about to drown as the waves crash over their boat. But Jesus stands up and speaks to the elements. Silence. Peace. Be still. And immediately there's complete calm. The disciples are asking, according to the scriptures, who is this man? Even the winds and the waves obey him. Now this isn't just a story meant to impress us. It reveals something fundamental about who Jesus is. The one with authority over nature itself because he was the creator of it all to begin with. I remember hiking up in the mountains as I was headed through the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail a few years ago. And a storm rolled in. Sky dark and thunder crashed I mean, my partner and I found ourselves exposed on this ridge with nowhere to take shelter. I mean, we're getting pelted by hail. I've rarely felt so vulnerable and was actually just a little frightened. We. We were there at the mercy of forces way belong way beyond our human control. And in that moment, all I could do was pray. And I did. I mean, y'all, I got after it. While the storm didn't instantly stop like that biblical account, I felt this peace wash over me. We found a relatively protected spot. We waited it out, and later I learned that, literally, it had. It had gotten so bad that other hikers had come close to losing their life. Sometimes God calms the storms, and other times he calms us in the storm. Either way, his power is at work. So I want to ask you, where in your life do you need God to change what seems unchangeable? What storm are you facing that feels beyond your control? Maybe it's a relationship that appears permanently broken. Maybe it's a financial situation with no apparent solution. Or maybe it's a dream that, well, you've deferred so long, you just stop believing it could ever happen.
Listen to what Isaiah says in chapter 43, verse 19. For I'm about to do something new. This is what God says. See, I have already begun. Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. That's what God does. But here's the thing. He accomplishes it his way, not ours. You see, God steps into our realities in this world that we just can't transform on our own. But not some distant, abstract miracle. I'm talking about the God who right now, in this very moment, is already at work changing the unchangeable elements in your life. As you go through the rest of your day, I encourage you to notice the places where God might already be at work creating something new in your life. Look for those small signs of hope, those tiny indicators that when we seem like, okay, we're in trouble, we can actually see that things are shifting. Remember, friends, only God can change nature. But he delights in doing that exact same thing for us, in us, through us, and around us. He's still in that business with you today. So until next time, this is Chuck Allen reminder that you're loved, you're valued, and you're never alone on the journey. Thanks so much for listening in on the weekday podcast. God bless you. Bye now.
