There is a moment every person in a storm arrives at. You stop asking how to fix it and start asking a much harder question: where is God in this?
I have been in that moment. And I have sat with enough people in ministry to know that it is one of the most dangerous places a believer can stand. Because the answer you arrive at in that moment will shape everything. How you pray. Whether you pray. How you see God. Whether you still trust Him.
I wrote Riding Out of the Storms to make sure that question gets the right answer. Because the wrong answer, taken deep enough, can quietly dismantle a person’s entire faith.
“Christ, who once calmed the sea with a word, is still in the boat. He is never absent. He is never indifferent. He is never late!”
Storms are not neutral. They speak. And what they say, over and over, in the language of exhaustion and confusion and unanswered prayer, is this: you are alone. God has forgotten you. This is more than you can carry.
Every one of those messages is a lie. But they are convincing lies, especially in the middle of the night when the pain is loudest and the silence of heaven feels most complete.
This is why I did not write a book that glosses over the reality of storms. I have no patience for that kind of writing. Real pain will not be tricked by pretty phrases. What I did write is a book that looks the storm squarely in the face, names what it actually does to a person, and then points, with both hands, to the God who is already present in it and is already working through it.
First, it will give you permission to be honest. Some of the most faithful people in Scripture were also some of the most raw. David cried out ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’ Job sat in ashes and demanded an audience with heaven. Jesus wept. Honesty before God is not weak faith. It is real faith!
Second, it will anchor you in the mercy and character of God. Not in feelings. Not in circumstances. But in the unchanging, unshakeable, never-failing nature of the One who holds you. This is the kind of anchor that holds when everything else is moving.
Third, it will teach you to wield thanksgiving as a weapon. This sounds counterintuitive, I know. But gratitude in the middle of a storm is not denial. It is defiance. It is the soul declaring, out loud, that God is still good and that this storm will not have the final word!
“A soul that has never suffered may remain smooth. But it will rarely be deep. Storms shape what nothing else can reach!”
Fourth, it will show you the power of community in suffering. You were never meant to ride out storms alone. The Church, at her best, is the fellowship of those who carry one another’s weight without demanding the other first become strong enough to deserve it.
Fifth, it will build something in you called spiritual resilience. Not toughness. Not hardness. But the kind of deep, rooted, storm-tested strength that comes from having been through something hard in the company of God and having found Him sufficient.
Sixth, it will help you see purpose in the storm. Not instantly. Not easily. But over time, with the help of Scripture, prayer, and honest reflection, you will begin to see the outlines of what God was doing in what only looked like chaos.
The last chapter of this book is called Emerging Stronger. I put it last deliberately, because I wanted the whole journey to be walked first. But when you get there, you will find something that surprised me even as I wrote it: the soul that comes through a genuine storm and surrendered it to God does not come out the same. It comes out deeper. Quieter. More compassionate. More useful to others who are still in what you just survived.
Your storm is not wasted. Your suffering has not been overlooked. God is not confused by your situation. He was in it before you arrived, and He will be waiting on the other side. The question is not whether you will make it through. The question is who you will be when you do.
Pick up this book. Let it be a companion through the dark. And may you emerge not just surviving, but shining with the kind of faith that only fire can produce!