“The prisoner and the storm…”

It must have been horrifying to be on the ship that was caught in this storm… “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” (Acts 27:20)  

They not only “lost their way,” they had “lost their hope!” The Apostle Paul had been taken prisoner for preaching the Gospel, and he had been placed on a ship to sail to Rome to appear for a judgment in doing so. A huge storm, Euroclydon (hurricane), struck the ship, which was loaded with 276 passengers. For two weeks, they could not see the sun nor the stars. They did not know daylight from darkness! They were in the middle of the sea inside the largest hurricane they could have ever been in. It was pitch black for two weeks in the storm… No one ate anything for those two “dark weeks” on the water in the middle of the “Euroclydon!” And “all their hope was lost.”

Maybe you are in the middle of a “hurricane” today… In fact, while I am writing this, Hurricane Dorian is heading to the Florida coast! You may not live in Florida, but you still may be in the midst of a dark storm and cannot see the daylight! You may feel as though “all hope is lost.” But it’s not. In the middle of this storm that Apostle Paul was in, God spoke to him… He said, “Be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life…” (Acts 27:22) Then Apostle Paul told the men what God had said, what to do, and then he told them “to eat” and strengthen themselves. When the Spirit of God came upon Apostle Paul, the prisoner was no longer a prisoner… He became the captain. And today in your storm, through Jesus Christ, you no longer need to be “the prisoner in the middle of the storm!” You can be “the captain!” You can take control of this problem! You can and you must! God is with you, and this storm will soon pass!!! Be of good cheer! God is in control! Sherry