We’ve had some storms this winter. Things are warming this week, but certainly there will be more storms in the future.
When the Lord was with the disciples in a storm on the sea, He was asleep. Though “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121:4), it appears that the Lord is absent when we are going through difficult times. It seems as though everything is chaotic, out of control.
In our spiritual life, not only as individuals but for our communities, our church and our world, times of chaos are inevitable. “Before being reduced to order, it is very common for everything to fall into confusion or seeming chaos. This allows things that cling together poorly to separate, and when they have separated, the Lord arranges them in their place. Nature offers parallels, since in it too each and every thing first falls into some degree of disorder before being put in order. If the skies did not storm, causing unlike elements to scatter, the air would never clear; destructive forces would amass and wreak havoc.” (Secrets of Heaven 842.3)
This kind of chaos can break up the cabals of evil spirits that gang up to attack our love for the Lord and our neighbor. “Such spirits find themselves forced into a state of mind that prevents them from thinking as a group, as part of the whole, the way they usually do. Instead they each have to think for themselves. Each thinking at variance with the others, and each muttering something different from the rest, produces an uproar that sounds like many waters. It is impossible to describe the conflict that rises out of a confusion of opinions about what must certainly be true about the topics of current thought and conversation. The confusion is such that it can be called spiritual chaos.” (Secrets of Heaven 2129)
Reading the news or browsing the internet brings to my attention many storms—meteorological, political, cultural, and spiritual—that are going on around us. I find comfort in knowing that though the Lord seems to be absent in these times of chaos, He actually has things under control. “As long as our trials continue, we think the Lord is absent, since evil demons disturb us, sometimes to the point where despair almost prevents us from believing God exists at all. But the Lord is closer then than we can possibly believe.” (Secrets of Heaven 840)