This week I’m looking at words we don’t use very often, but they have a profound impact, nonetheless. Now that I mention it, the word “nonetheless” doesn’t get used on a daily basis either, but I’ll save that for another day. The word “tempestuous” stirs thoughts of chaos and things getting so out of control that we don’t know how to handle them. The storms of life are to be expected, but why do they always come at the same time? Why does it seem so difficult to navigate through them? Where is the captain of the ship? I actually wonder about that last statement. The captain is usually carousing with the passengers, so who is at the helm?

We don’t plan for disasters. We don’t look forward to financial problems. We aren’t ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but so often we expect to do so. Instead of waiting for something to happen, we must be proactive in the process. We can wait for the proverbial rescue, but unless we do something, chances are the answers will slip right past us without our even recognizing them. God gives us most of the necessary solutions through His Word, the Bible. He has also given us a brain, so that we can work through these things with His help.

The real guide for living comes in our daily communion with the greatest Navigator ever. So, forget about the weather channel and look to the skies.

“He stretches out the north over the void
    and hangs the earth on nothing.
 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
    and the cloud is not split open under them.
 He covers the face of the full moon^[b]
    and spreads over it his cloud.
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
    at the boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble
    and are astounded at his rebuke.” Job 26:7-11