Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Can You Sleep While The Wind Blows?

Years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast. He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops. As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals. Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farm hand?" the farmer asked him. "Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man. Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work. Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!". The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows." Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm. To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while the wind blew.

When you're prepared, spiritually, mentally, and physically, you have nothing to fear. Can you sleep when the wind blows through your life? The hired hand in the story was able to sleep because he had secured the farm against the storm. We secure ourselves against the storms of life by grounding ourselves in the Word of God. We don't need to understand, we just need to hold His hand to have peace in the middle of storms.


http://www.hall4bc04.org/Storm.htm

3 comments:

Akin said...

How true. But how does one prepare spiritually, mentally, and physically? It'll be wrong to assume that we all know how...

adetayo said...

Well, I'm not sure I have the answer to that question, but I'll make an attempt... I think the first way to prepare is to come to terms with the fact that storms will come...storms are a part of life, and their occurence has nothing to do with whether you've been good or you've been bad...when you know this, no storm will take you by surprise (though in reality it does most times). I think also that preparing for the storms of life is like preparing for war in times of peace...so like a natural army has weapons of war in their arsenal ready for attack or defense shld war arise, we shld also as Christians arm ourselves with spiritual weapons, which the Bible says are not carnal...Eph 6 v 11-18 list our entire armor...the truth of the Word of God, righteousness, faith, prayer etc etc..just generally building up your spiritual muscles by walking with God daily. Mental and physical preparation I think are common sense things we need no prophet to tell us to do...simple example is saving/planning for retirement, so that when the storm of old age comes, you can sleep through it...this is my 2 cents..

john said...

The preparation needed to be able "sleep while the blows" - what a catchy phrase - is really a process and not an event. It is not arrived at overnight - it takes a lifetime. It is fraught with peaks and valleys - times when we fail and times when we sail.

What's most important in getting prepared are often times the little perhaps insignificant things in life: being able to enjoy a good laugh, knowing that God loves you no matter what, ability to recall past blessings, knowing that there are those in worse situation that yours.

Above everything else is our FAITH in God - how well we know Him. This knowing comes by knowing what He has to say (Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God). Knowing Him builds an edifice (a wall of confidence) around your soul that gives you the courage to raise your head in the midst of the storm.