A person can drown in an inch of water.

While we may adhere to some cosmic hierarchy of valid storms of life – cancer, murder, death of a child, these may top the charts of acceptably honorific life struggles – the reality is that whatever storm you face has the potential of being one under which you just might succumb.

One of the reasons I failed to grasp the beauty of the Psalms for most of my life is because it didn’t fit into any category of emotional balance I’d ever been taught. I’d seen only a few reactions to troubles like the psalmists so often seemed to face: you rage and vent and regale the world with details of your tragic affair or you sweep the whole thing under the rug and plaster that ‘happy’ face right on top of your pretty little smocked collar.

What I see in the Psalms is neither of those reactions. The psalmists very often draw attention to the fact that there were storms and troubles, but rarely wax ad nauseam on the details. And while they do indeed express emotions that seem completely unfettered, there are never accounts of their having acted on or in their rage.

I taut control. I have often prided myself (unrighteously) on my command of my emotions – as if to have them at all is weakness. I, therefore, naturally lean toward the “sweep it under the rug” reaction. Psalms doesn’t seem to advocate that. Vent in surrender. Rage in prayer. The psalm writers aren’t the only ones to voice complaints in Scripture. Prophets, priests, saints, and sinners bring their brokenness to the Father in words of anguish and emotions in crisis.

Your storms are real. They are valid. And while your storm may consist of the most fierce of one inch waves, they can still feel like they are bringing you to an inch of your life.

If God cares about the mold in your house or the condition of your earthenware vessels or how many years a tree produces fruit before you pick from it (all of which He discusses in the Word), then He cares about your one inch storm as well as your tsunami and every detail of life besides.

If you’re in the raging waters today, God has a word for you. If you are enjoying the peaceful tides of calmer waters, God has a word for you too. To the former, hold tight to the truths of clearer days. To the latter, grow in the truths of these clear days that when the skies darken you will be prepared to glorify your Maker in the coming storm.

Truth to cling to: if you are looking to God to help you, you have much to be thankful for. You have been granted a window into the eternal and the God of all creation calls your name and desires that you would be His own. This powerful and inconceivably great God desires and delights in favoring you, blessing you, loving on you. And while what you are walking through might not feel at all like an act of love, He has spent all human existence impressing upon the hearts of man and the intricacies of creation a knowledge of the depths of His love for His children. In His sovereign and infinite wisdom He has a long history of being trustworthy to take us to places we want to go – even when the path we must take to arrive there isn’t one we delight in traveling.

Quiet your soul with knowledge of this: though He seems distant, as far as the sun and as unreachable as the same, He has chosen to draw near to you. Train your eyes upon the glimpses of Him found in the Word, in your own story, in the lives of others who know Him, and watch expectant for your King to rescue.

Like a watchman I wait expectant for the mercies of the Lord to dispel the raging waters that threaten (though are unable) to engulf me.