Calming a Storm
Teaching
No sooner had I finished addressing him, than that quiet Voice spoke again, saying that Satan was not the one I should be addressing in this matter, either. Then I recalled that Jesus had spoken directly to the wind and the waves when His ship was in danger on the Sea of Galilee. Mark 4:39 says He “rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (King James Version)
I looked up at the clouds and spoke out loud. (At the moment I was alone, which made this easier and less embarrassing to do.) I commanded the wind to cease, and the storm to pass us by without doing any damage to our property. And then I waited. The bad weather had not actually arrived yet, so there was nothing more to do.
After ten or fifteen minutes a gentle rain began to fall. It gradually became heavier until it was coming down very hard. The rain continued for nearly two hours, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, but there was no wind, no thunder, no lightning – just the rain coming straight down out of the clouds. Lightning and wind were the things that posed a threat to my fragile shelter, not the rain. In fact, there are few things I find more pleasant than to sit under the shelter of a tent or on my front porch and enjoy the sound and smell of rain – so that’s exactly what I did.
About two weeks after that I was standing in a large, nearly empty parking lot on the Mexican side of the border at Laredo, Texas. I had the hood up on my car, waiting for an overheated engine to cool down. Big, threatening storm clouds were approaching from the other side of town, and suddenly I saw a flash of lightning in the distance followed by a rumble of thunder. Knowing that a large, open area such as the one I was in is not a safe place to be in a lightning storm, I pointed at the clouds and commanded that there would be no more thunder or lightning as the storm passed over. (Once again I was alone, which made this easier to do.) Not long after that the rain passed over where I was and continued northwest across the Rio Grande behind me. There was no more thunder or lightning after the first flash I had seen.
Praise God! He has given us authority, (dominion, as He called it when speaking to Adam) over the elements and the living creatures of the earth. They are all bound by the laws of Heaven and earth to obey us when we speak from our position as children of God. If God recognizes you as one of His children – which He does if you are born again – then you have that power, too. You just have to believe what He said.