{"id":5182,"date":"2024-04-18T10:17:53","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T15:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/?p=5182"},"modified":"2024-04-18T10:17:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T15:17:53","slug":"storms-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/2024\/04\/18\/storms-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Storms of life"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: lucida sans unicode, lucida grande, sans-serif;\"><strong>Acts 27:27-37<br \/>\nNow I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair \u00a0from his head.\u201d (Acts 27:34) \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Devotion \u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nHave you ever been caught in a severe storm, one in which the winds were strong and rain \u00a0poured down forcefully?<br \/>\nPaul was caught in a similar storm while a prisoner aboard a ship heading for trial. For fourteen \u00a0days, this ship was tossed around in a powerful sea. Fear, uncertainty, and chaos filled that boat, \u00a0but Paul remained at peace. Unfortunately, Paul&#8217;s words could not calm the others, as their fear \u00a0was already much bigger than their faith.<br \/>\nPaul then encourages his fellow travelers to pause, eat, and take a moment of rest. By supporting \u00a0their physical need (food), he helped meet their spiritual need (trust in God). After blessing the \u00a0bread, all 276 people on board were satisfied and at peace. This helped them to think more \u00a0clearly, turning their panic into positive problem-<br \/>\nsolving .Sometimes, in the storms of life, we simply need to pause, refresh ourselves, and rest. In doing \u00a0so, we are better able to hear God&#8217;s voice and function in confidence. Fear will cause us to run \u00a0and make impulsive decisions. Faith will help us stand firm and listen to God&#8217;s directives.<br \/>\nThe Lord knows our needs and hears our desires. He has not forgotten us and will not leave us \u00a0stranded. No storm is too powerful to separate us from God&#8217;s promises and protection.\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><strong>Prayer<\/strong><br \/>\nFather, forgive me for the times I have tried to find my own solutions and behaved reactively. \u00a0Help to rely on you and trust your promises in the middle of my storms. Thank you for meeting \u00a0my every need, big and small. Amen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thought for the Day<\/strong><br \/>\nWe must remain full of hope and peace because every storm will eventually pass, making way \u00a0for the sun to shine again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Betsy Chacko<br \/>\nThe Mar Thoma Church of Staten Island, New York<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acts 27:27-37 Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair \u00a0from his head.\u201d (Acts 27:34) \u00a0&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/storm-sized.jpg?fit=1380%2C920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5184,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5182\/revisions\/5184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}