joseph james books

STORMS COME, USING OUR AUTHORITY

Sometimes storms come. It rains on the righteous and the evil. In some churches, when a bad thing happens to a person or family, the first question asked is, “What did they do wrong? Who sinned?” It’s a valid point because that does happen and the disciples even asked Jesus the same question about the man who was born blind. John 9:2, “…who sinned, this man or his parents?”

I heard a message yesterday about a passage of scripture that I knew but hadn’t seen in this particular viewpoint. John was thrown into prison awaiting execution and yet he didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, he did everything right. Jesus and his disciples were crossing the sea when a storm blew up. No one did anything wrong that we can tell. Jesus used the storm to show that He had authority even over the weather and He gave that same authority to us. We use it when we need to do so and have many times in our travels, especially.

One time, some years back, we were in North Dallas at a Best Buy. Dark, ominous clouds came over us as we were in the parking lot. We looked up to see a tornado above us. It was spinning in a large circle and coming down. His authority rose up in me and I pointed to it and commanded it to go back up and go away. It did! We walked into the store, got what we needed, and then left.

People perish for lack of knowledge. Even those who read the Bible over and over again suffer things unnecessarily because they don’t do what it says. Some think some things have passed away, so they walk through life not using the full armor that is available to them. It’s so sad, but don’t dare tell them anything or you might lose your head, so to speak. They’re not safe to be around.

Me, I want what all He has for us. We’ve been in numerous hail storms where we’ve prayed and it stops. Conversely, we’ve been in situations where nothing changed. The Lord reserves the right to override us when He has a certain purpose for it. Some storms are bad, but they are allowed in order to bring change. Some are demonically influenced and the severity can be tempered through the words of Jesus, “Peace Be Still!” It works because He gave us that same authority. Sometimes, the Lord in His goodness allows us to lose something in order to give us His best. Eagles start tearing apart the nest when it is time for the young eagles to fly. Ready or not, they’ll either fall or fly. Ready or not, we’ll either fall or fly. It’s the way of life. Some people will die in their comfort zone, like a frog in a slowly heated pot of water. They can’t see that danger is all around if they don’t change. Some people give up on life in their teens and their bodies slowly deteriorate over the years until they finally die physically, never having  really lived. I call this an “Existing or Living Suicide.” What we do with the storm aftermath is another choice to make. Go on or not. The storm forces the change and hopefully, we make a good choice in it so we can really live.

As I write, there is a storm outside heading our way. The eye of Hurricane Beryl is only about 40 miles away with 75 mph winds right now. The heavy rain is blowing against the windows.

This is a song I wrote after facing death in a medical storm regarding a seizure and aneurysm on March 8, 2024. There is more info in the music video about the journey.

As I was writing this post, the power went out and so I had to stop with the above section. That was Monday, July 8, 2024 and today is Saturday, July 13. Our power went out and I had no internet. The cell phone tower was down as well. I couldn’t do a Google Search, or get anything to load on the internet until our power came back on and evidently, the cell tower too. We were blind. The only people I could communicate with were my phone contacts and email, and I did. It was scary being in a dark hotel. Thankfully, the window in our room had a window we could open. It was hot! We had been in a physical storm, but now we were also in a mental storm with serious choices to make. Would we survive? What was going to happen in the aftermath and cleanup?
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