His Calm
Today’s devotional was written by my son, Clark Wrather, who is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Clark was the pastor at Broken Bow for 12 years. In June 2012 he was called to the First Baptist Church of Yukon, Oklahoma.
Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. – Mark 4:29.
A few weeks ago, I was back in my hometown. While there, one evening I had to run to Wal-Mart to get a few things. I had been on the road all day and I was really tired by 9:00 pm when I pulled into the parking lot.
I ran in and did my shopping as fast as possible, but when you’re a man and don’t know where things are, it’s not all that fast. Eventually, I had everything I needed, checked out and headed for my car in the parking lot.
When I got to the car, I put my key in the door, but it wouldn’t turn. This made me a little worried. On the way down, I had stopped at Crossroads Mall in OKC. When I came back to my car, I couldn’t get my key to work right then either. It wouldn’t turn over the ignition until I had jiggled it around for about 10 minutes.
I thought that my key must be damaged or something. The same key not only starts the car, but also opens the doors. Anyway, I stared jiggling the key all around. I would shake it this way and that way. I would twist it back and forth and back and forth. After 10 minutes of this, I was about to lose it. After 15 minutes, I did. I dropped my sacks and used both hands to move that key around. I even started having a conversation with my Explorer about what a good for nothing car it had been. I may have even been yelling.
During this tirade, I was shaking my head back and forth and one time when I did, I noticed another forest green explorer just a few spaces down. I thought to myself, no way…. I gathered up my sacks and went to try the other Explorer. Of course, my key slid right in and opened that door right up.
Before I could get in, I had to look over to the people that had been in the parking lot who had seen me verbally abuse this other car and then walk over to a different one. I just raised my voice a bit and said, hey, both of them were forest green!
In life there are often times when we are tempted to “lose it.” Usually, if we’ll just take a deep breath and a good look around the whole situation, we’ll save ourselves a great deal of embarrassment.
(Remember the Lord can still calm the sea and rebuke the wind.)