New Wine Ministries
The Calm  
By. Deni Fortuna

I realize tonight that my phone is strangely quiet. Usually there are loads of emails, pop-up notices from various sites and video notices from people I follow. But this evening there are no notices and few emails. It feels like the calm that comes before a storm.  

Here in the North, summer is when thunderstorms arrive. Then the atmosphere is just right for rainstorms to be created and move across the land. With radar, storm watchers, and TV weathercasters, there is usually time between the warning of a coming storm and its arrival. The sky begins to darken as rain swollen clouds move in along with a wind bringing the storm. The leaves on the trees flap their complaint at being caught in the wind’s path and birds fly off looking for shelter. And then it happens…the calm before the storm arrives.

In a mere moment all the sounds of a summer day go silent, even as the wind disappears, the clouds stand still, and the thirsty earth waits in anticipation of a good drink of water. Even the bugs aren't heard as the quiet descends. The air begins to crackle with an energy that heightens your senses. You begin to detect the smell of water in the air as the sky grows darker and the clouds appear to move closer to earth. Suddenly, a great burst of wind blows across the land, a crack of lightning zipped through the sky and a clap of thunder precedes the first fat drops of rain. The wait is over. The calm is replaced by the storm as it moves on a path of its own making.  

I sense that calm in my world today. God is close to answering our prayers and save our nation. Our beautiful, troubled country is thirsty for a storm that will blow out the burned chaff of faded dreams, drop cleansing rain on all the hurts we have endured and make our beautiful nation pregnant with the promise to renew our vow to God as sovereign over our nation once again.  
There is a storm coming. God has promised to sweep through and do what He does best, answer prayer. We, His saints, His children, have been praying for months, years really, for God to save America from the future looming ahead of us. A future we didn't stop from happening long ago and from which we now need to be saved. Like all storms, we cannot predict what it will do as it passes by. What destruction might take place or how much rain is going to fall is unpredictable.  But we can be certain that the land will be nourished by the rain, that the clouds will pass through, and the sun will once again shine. This cycle speaks to the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father and His great love for our country. He can wash our world clean with His holy rain and faithfully open to us a new day where the light shines brightly again.

My phone remains silent. There is a storm coming. A miracle of God's design. Enjoy the calm today and look forward to the sun that follows the storm. The in between is in God's hands.