Storms in Life: Learning to Pray Through the Storm

Storms are part of life. Some of them we see coming, and we have at least a little time to prepare. Others seem to come out of nowhere. One phone call, one diagnosis, one accident, one conversation, one loss, and suddenly life doesn’t look anything like it did the day before.

When we hear the word storm, we usually think of dark skies, thunder, lightning, and strong winds. But some of the hardest storms we will ever go through happen inside of us. Grief, trauma, fear, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and loss can leave us just as shaken as any physical storm.

Today in our Grace in the Stillness class, we talked about those storms and what Scripture tells us about walking through them. Not avoiding them, because Jesus never promised us that. In fact, He told us just the opposite.

In John 16:33, Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I think sometimes we read the second part without really sitting with the first. Jesus says we will have trouble. Following Christ doesn’t mean we’re somehow protected from grief, trauma, sickness, disappointment, or loss. We live in a broken world, and being a Christian doesn’t make us immune to the pain of living in it.

What Jesus does give us is hope in the middle of it. He doesn’t say there won’t be a storm. He reminds us that the storm doesn’t have the final word.

When Life Takes Us Into Deep Water

One of the main passages we looked at was Psalm 107. It gives us four different pictures of people in desperate situations: people wandering in the desert, prisoners sitting in darkness, people suffering through affliction, and sailors caught in a storm.

The sailors are described as going out into deep waters, and I kept thinking about that phrase. Deep water is different from standing somewhere you can still touch the bottom. When you’re in deep water, that sense of control is gone. You can’t just put your feet down and steady yourself.

Life has deep water too. Losing someone you love can take you there. So can trauma, illness, divorce, addiction in your family, financial problems, anxiety, or any number of things we never thought we would have to face. Suddenly, all the things we normally rely on to make us feel secure don’t feel quite so secure anymore.

There are things we learn about our need for God in deep water that we probably never would have learned standing safely on the shore. That doesn’t mean God caused the terrible thing that happened so He could teach us a lesson. I think we have to be very careful about saying things like that to hurting people.

Scripture itself shows us that storms don’t all happen for the same reason. Jonah encountered a storm while running from God. Job suffered through circumstances he didn’t cause. The disciples encountered a storm while they were doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do, and Paul went through a violent storm while serving God.

So when someone is hurting, we can’t always wrap their suffering up with a simple explanation. I’ve heard people say, “Everything happens for a reason,” and although I’m sure it’s usually meant to comfort, those words can hurt when you’re struggling.

Sometimes we simply don’t know why something happened. There are questions we may carry for a very long time, and some may not be answered in this life. What we can know is that God hasn’t lost sight of us just because we’ve lost sight of what He’s doing.

At Your Wit’s End

Psalm 107:26–27 describes what happens to the sailors as the storm gets worse. They’re thrown up by the waves and then plunged back down. They stagger, they’re terrified, and eventually they reach what Scripture calls their “wits’ end.”

That sounds a lot like grief and to me. You can be doing okay one minute and something completely unexpected knocks you over the next. It might be a song, a picture, an anniversary, a smell, or hearing someone’s name. You thought you were doing pretty well that day, and suddenly you’re right back in the waves.

Trauma can do the same thing. The storm isn’t always happening around us anymore, but our minds and bodies can still react as though it is. That’s one of the things I thankful for about Scripture. It doesn’t minimize what suffering does to people. These sailors were afraid, overwhelmed, and completely out of ideas, and the Bible simply tells us the truth about where they were.

Then we get to Psalm 107:28: “Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble.”

That same pattern happens throughout Psalm 107. The wanderers cry out. The prisoners cry out. Those who are suffering cry out. The sailors cry out. Different circumstances, different people, but eventually they all do the same thing. They turn toward God.

What Does Prayer Look Like in a Storm?

Sometimes we make prayer more complicated than it needs to be. We feel like we need to have the right words or somehow sound faithful when we talk to God, especially when we’re struggling. Maybe we don’t want to admit we’re angry, confused, afraid, or even disappointed.

Then you read David’s prayers.

Psalm 142 was written while David was hiding in a cave. This wasn’t David sitting peacefully somewhere thinking about how good life had been. He was afraid, exhausted, discouraged, and alone, and he didn’t try to make his prayer sound pretty.

He says, “I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.”

I love the words pour out because they don’t sound controlled. David isn’t giving God the cleaned-up version of what he’s feeling. He’s telling Him the truth.

There may be times when all we can pray is, “Help me.” Maybe it’s “Jesus, I need You,” or even, “God, I don’t understand any of this.” Those are still prayers. God already knows what’s in our hearts, so we’re not protecting Him by keeping the difficult parts to ourselves.

Sometimes the most honest prayer is simply telling God, “I’m angry,” “I’m scared,” or “I don’t know what to do.” David shows us that faith isn’t pretending we’re okay. Faith can look like bringing exactly where we are to God.

Peace Doesn’t Always Come With Answers

We also spent some time in Philippians 4:6–7, where Paul tells us to bring everything to God in prayer. What stood out to me is what God promises in return.

He promises peace.

He doesn’t say that every question will immediately be answered or that the circumstances will suddenly change. Sometimes we want God to explain everything so we can finally have peace, but there are times when He gives us peace before He gives us understanding.

Jesus talks about that same kind of peace in John 14:27 when He says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

The timing of that conversation makes those words even more powerful. Jesus said them shortly before He was arrested. The disciples were about to enter an incredibly frightening and confusing time, yet Jesus was talking to them about peace.

That tells me His definition of peace can’t simply mean that everything around us is going well. The world tells us we’ll have peace when the problem is fixed, the relationship is restored, the diagnosis changes, or life finally settles down. Jesus offers a peace that isn’t dependent on any of those things.

“Come to Me”

We spent quite a bit of our class slowing down and looking at Matthew 11:28–30. It’s a passage many of us have heard countless times, but when you stop and look at the words individually, there’s so much there.

Jesus begins by saying, “Come to me…”

He doesn’t say come when you understand everything or when you’ve gotten yourself together. He doesn’t tell us to become stronger first. He simply says to come.

Then there’s one little word I don’t want to overlook: all. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

That invitation includes the person who has followed Jesus most of their life and the person who is barely hanging onto their faith. It includes the grieving, angry, anxious, confused, and exhausted. It includes the person who feels close to God and the person wondering where God has been.

I also think it’s significant that Jesus specifically talks about people who are weary and burdened. He knows what carrying something heavy does to us. Grief is heavy. Trauma is heavy. Fear, regret, guilt, caregiving, loneliness, and trying to keep it together when you’re falling apart yourself are heavy.

Some of the heaviest burdens people carry aren’t visible to anyone around them. You can smile, go to work, take care of your family, show up at church, and answer “I’m fine” while carrying something inside that feels almost unbearable.

Jesus sees it.

And He says, “I will give you rest.”

I love that He uses the word give. This kind of rest isn’t something we earn by getting our lives right or becoming stronger Christians. It’s something we receive from Him.

We Are Not Meant to Carry Everything Alone

Jesus continues by telling us, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” 

A yoke isn’t something most of us see in everyday life anymore, but in Jesus’ day it was a familiar picture. It joined two animals together so they could carry a load.

I don’t think Jesus is offering us another burden here. He’s showing us that we were never supposed to drag everything through life by ourselves.

Sometimes we become so used to carrying things that we don’t even realize how much we’re holding anymore. We carry the fear, the guilt, the questions, tomorrow’s problems, and yesterday’s regrets. We replay things we can’t change and worry about things that haven’t even happened.

Jesus invites us to walk with Him instead.

Then He describes Himself in a way that is so comforting: “For I am gentle and humble in heart.”

Of all the words Jesus could have chosen, He tells weary people that He is gentle. He’s not impatient with our tears or frustrated because we’re still struggling with something we thought we should be “over” by now. We don’t have to become stronger before we approach Him.

We come as we are.

God Is Our Refuge

Toward the end of Psalm 142, David says something else that stood out to me: “You are my refuge.”

He doesn’t just say God gives him a refuge. God Himself is his refuge. That doesn’t mean David’s circumstances suddenly became easy. He was still in the cave, Saul was still looking for him, and the danger was still real.

Yet David eventually moves toward praise even before everything around him changes. Praise isn’t pretending something didn’t hurt or trying to convince ourselves that a terrible situation was somehow good. It’s remembering that God is still good even when life isn’t.

Psalm 71 carries that thought even further because David looks back at his life and remembers how God has been faithful before. I think that’s something we can easily forget when we’re in a storm.

When the waves are high enough, it’s hard to remember anything except the storm in front of us. Sometimes we need to look back and remember the storms we’ve already survived and the places where God met us before.

The God who was faithful then is still God now.

What Are You Carrying?

As we came to the end of our time together, we returned to Matthew 11:28 and Jesus’ invitation to those who are weary and burdened. After everything we had talked about; the storms, the deep water, David’s honest prayers, and the peace Jesus offers-His words seemed to bring it all back to one simple question: What am I still trying to carry on my own?

For each of us, the answer will be different. It may be grief, fear, anxiety, regret, loneliness, anger, or questions that still don’t have answers. Sometimes it’s something we’ve carried for so long that we hardly recognize the weight of it anymore.

Bringing that burden to Jesus doesn’t mean the storm suddenly disappears. Grief doesn’t work that way. Trauma doesn’t work that way, and neither does life. What changes is that we no longer have to believe we’re supposed to carry all of it by ourselves.

Maybe you weren’t sitting in our class, but Jesus’ invitation isn’t limited to that room. If you’re reading this in the middle of a storm of your own, you don’t need to know exactly what to say to Him. You don’t have to understand why this happened or have your faith completely figured out before you come.

Just be honest with Him. Tell Him if you’re scared, angry, confused, or simply tired. Ask the questions you’ve been afraid to ask. If all you can manage today is, “Jesus, help me,” start there. Sometimes that’s the most honest prayer we have.

And if you give something to Him today only to realize tomorrow that you’ve picked it right back up, bring it to Him again. I know how easy it is to pray about something and then find myself worrying about it all over again. Coming to Jesus isn’t something we do once and somehow master. We keep coming back.

That’s what I want to remember from our time together. The storm isn’t the main character of the story. Jesus is. The storm may become part of our story, sometimes a very painful part, but it doesn’t get to have the final word.