"Fate whispers to the warrior, 'You cannot withstand the storm.' The warrior whispers back, 'I am the storm.'" -- Unknown

I don't know who said it but I will always remember this quote. I think there is a principle to learn from this. What do you do when you are faced with life's storms? What do you do with any storm? Dig in and ride it out or evacuate. But life's storms cannot be evacuated from. You can't just decide not to go through whatever is facing you. Trials and tribulations happen to the best of us. Even Jesus said, "In this world you WILL HAVE tribulation but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). You can't just ignore when something bad happens but you can decide how you will react to it. The Jews faced the gas chambers at Auschwitz singing praises to God. Read Foxes Book of Martyrs, there are numerous accounts of Christians being persecuted for their faith. It is said that it drove Nero crazy (crazier) when he took a torch and walked around the Colosseum where Christians had been ripped apart by lions and they had smiles on their faces.

When Jesus stepped on board a ship from walking on the water he held up his hand and said 'Peace be still' and the storm stopped (Mark 4:39). In another place he is just sleeping in the boat in the midst of the storm (Matthew 8:23-27). When the disciples woke him up he rebuked their lack of faith, I mean they had the creator of the world, the master of the sea on board, what could possibly happen when he was on board?

This is the perspective we must have when we face hardship in life. We need to know Christ is on board and know that everything will work out one way or another. And sometimes he rebukes the storm and sometimes he just holds us as we go through the storm. That does not necessarily mean he will change the diagnosis the doctor just gave you. He can and it could happen but even if he doesn't we can have confidence that he will command the storm of fear and the out-of-control imagination in us and be the 'peace that passes all understanding' (Philippians 4:7). That is what God did for me when I went through cancer. He gave me such a peace that was absolutely supernatural, beyond anything I could possibly muster up. He taught me to take it day by day and no 'what ifs'. I had bad days and good days during cancer but without a doubt he was with me.

There is a principle to be learned here. When going through a storm you have to become the storm, you have to absorb the storm. You don't ignore the storm, you just become stronger than the storm. You let it wash over you and pass through you but you don't allow it to overpower you.

In the movie After Earth, Will Smith's character says something very profound:

"Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is the product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Now do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice." -- Will Smith in the movie 'After Earth'

In the RAVENQUEST series I wrote one of my characters named Jazeer explains it this way:

"How often we judge that we see and hear and then create an image that we fear when in reality we have nothing to base such fears upon. There is such a thing as danger and it must be dealt with but even danger should be dealt with courageously. Fear is a feeling. You feel hot. You feel cold. You feel afraid. Too much hot, too much cold....too much fear can kill you. It can kill you not only physically but long before it kills you physically it will kill your heart, mind, spirit and soul. It can turn the most valiant of heroes into a blubbering, thumb sucking weakling.

"Here is the reality though. Fear is an illusion. It is a figment of your imagination, a product of your mind. It is your imagination used wrongly. To control your imagination and to be untouchable by fear though struck down by real danger you still win. To respond in fear to any situation, you have already lost, unless you recognize it soon enough and pull out of its vortex that will surely drag you down to destruction if you allow it. The battle is not won or lost on the battlefield. It is won or lost right here." He said as he pointed to his head. I cannot even explain the effect his words had upon me. It wasn't that I could not speak, there was just no need to speak.

"The best fighters know that you don't push against an attacker but you redirect their force to your advantage. It is the same with fear. You should redirect its force and turn that which was meant to destroy you into something that serves you. Fear should be your slave, not your master. You trust your quest will succeed and you proceed from a place of confidence and a trust in he who has called you. In this you do well. Do so in all things. For is life itself not a quest?"

-- Jazeer, Book 2 of RAVENQUEST, 'The Scroll & The Key'

How is this possible and what do I mean by 'becoming the storm'? Rather than giving into panic and fear you transform your point of view to something that is equal to or greater than what you are facing. By doing so the storm cannot harm you no matter how bad it gets. Yes, it may even kill your physical body but even that prospect should not change your faith and your focus. This is true power when you cannot be shaken even if the worst thing happens. You don't give in. You fight any way you can. In the case of sickness don't give up. Pursue every medical means that you can. Don't ever give up!

Jesus told a parable about two houses. One was built on sand and the other was built on a rock and when the storms came and beat on those houses the one that was built on the rock made it through the storm:

Matthew 7:24-27

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

In Ephesians 6:11-18 tells us to put on the whole armor of God. Verse 13 tells us "having done all to stand, STAND". Stand regardless of the storm.

I discuss what is meant by the full armor of God in the chapter in my book, YOU ARE THE STORM entitled, 'The Enemy' but just briefly I would like to mention an often-overlooked piece of the armor described, the shoes in verse 15: "your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace" What is He saying here? What are we to be grounded in? The answer? PEACE. There is not a soldier whom one piece of this armor will do any good if his feet are cut out from under him. And the Christian won't be able to stand if he doesn't have a sure standing and foothold in PEACE. This is what holds us to the Rock. Our peace and assurance we have in knowing that no matter what comes against us we need not be afraid or shaken. We can experience peace. You must have on the right shoes, the right standing. A construction worker doesn't wear high heels on a job site and an ice skater doesn't wear army boots on the ice. Neither can the Christian stand in the shoes of worry, doubt and fear.

This is how we absorb the storm and become the storm, this is what faith is all about, focusing on something above us and more powerful than us that lives in us and can not only stand up to the storm but can absorb it. The storm can pass right through us. Like Jazeer said, "Fear should be your slave, not your master."

Your truth and the rock you stand on should be what the Word of God says:

Isaiah 54:17

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord."

Luke 10:19

"Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."

I'm not talking about some 'name it, claim it' garbage here. Pain, sickness and hardship are real. Sometimes it will kill you, like cancer does sometimes. Sometimes no matter how positive you are and 'full of faith' you are bad things still happen. But Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Yes, there is a very literal meaning of this verse that focuses in on religious persecution and tells us to fear God who can send someone to hell more than someone killing us for our faith and many disciples of Christ did literally die for their faith but I also think we can broaden the meaning of this verse to not fear WHAT can kill only the body but emphasizes that more importantly to preserve our mind, will and emotions called the 'soul' in this passage. We can take comfort in the fact that the one (God) that is powerful enough to destroy our enemies and that which comes against us is on our side and tells us to have faith and trust in him no matter what the circumstances appear to be.

Some might say that is just brainwashing. To that I say, you know what? Some times our brain needs washing! I get a lot into this in the chapter in my book, You Are The Storm, called 'The Basics'. It is our responsibility to keep our thoughts in line and not let them run amuck. WE are responsible for renewing our mind according to Romans 12:2. There is an old computer programmer saying, 'Garbage in, Garbage out'. We need to constantly beware of what we look at and listen to and what we put in us. Job 31:1 talks about making a covenant with our eyes. We need to be aware especially on what the majority of our time is spent doing. Feed the spirit not the emotions.

Don't be terrified and filled with fear. The enemy can smell fear. That is his weapon. The letters in F-E-A-R can stand for False Evidence Appearing Real. What is real to you? The Word of God needs to be more real to you than the storms around you. Why is it Jesus could rebuke the storm? Because He was peace. The storm could not withstand Him because he was the storm. And the storms of life cannot withstand you if you know in whom you are established, and who your peace is.

I think the worst enemy we have sometimes is ourselves. I think sometimes God allows us to go through some things until we learn to rest in Him and to be at peace. Give it to God. As long as you want to fight it yourself God will let you. As long as you fight it the way you think it ought to be fought using all those weapons of the flesh you won't do anything but get worn out. Sure, it may not be easy but the Bible says God laughs at his enemies (Psalms 2:4). And we need to get to that point we laugh at life's assaults. We do this in the power of the Lord's might though not in our flesh.

We have to find that place where we can have joy in the midst of our problems. The joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). What does that tell you? If your enemy, the devil, can rob you of your joy, he robs you of your strength. Why do you think he works so hard at stealing our joy? So, where do we get this joy? Psalms 16:11 tells us: "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Get in His presence. Spend time with Him. Open that Bible, worship him, listen for His voice, let Him fill you with His peace. Read the Word of God. Memorize it. Study it. Let God speak to you through it. He is your strength. Say the Word of God out loud. Why? Because when you do, your ears hear it and it gets in your mind and soul and spirit. The devil hears it and flees. God hears it and honors it as you come into agreement with Him and His word. This is the 'preparation' part. Remember your feet shod with the PREPARATION of the gospel of peace? You can't wait till you are in the storm to study. No, prepare yourself everyday whether you are going through a storm or not. So many Christians wait till they are going through something to pray and cry out to God and search His Word. Prepare ahead of time! Let the Holy Spirit guide you daily. He knows what is ahead not you. We are like sponges. Squeeze a sponge and whatever is in it, what it has absorbed, comes out. If your thoughts are filled with fear and garbage of this world when you are squeezed by life that is all that will come out. But be filled with the Spirit, full of the Word of God and when you are squeezed faith will come out. David said in Psalm 119:11, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." He first had to hide the word in his heart before it had the power to help him overcome.

Fact is some times God doesn't take away the pain or cure the disease. Even Apostle Paul spoke about a thorn in his flesh:

2 Corinthians 12:7-9 "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Now scholars have speculated for years what that 'thorn in the flesh' was but in this context that I am speaking of it doesn't matter what it was. The point to me is that sometimes God doesn't remove that which is causing us trouble but he gives us grace to be able to bear it. Sure, we would rather not go through whatever it is we are going through but fact is we do go through some things. Bad things even happen to good people so it isn't about how good we are and it isn't about how holy and Godly we are apparently because if anyone was living right it was Apostle Paul.

So often when we are facing something difficult our first response is to figure out why and often we seek to place blame on something or somebody. We blame God and wonder if he is punishing us for something we did or we blame the devil or someone else. That is not the response we should have. If the problem is caused by something we can do something about by all means do something about it but more times than not that isn't the case. If that isn't the case our response should be 'God, what do want me to learn from this?' Like Apostle Paul he turned his thorn into something that would strengthen him rather than let it weaken him. In the midst of trouble turn that which the enemy meant for evil into something good. Joseph in the Bible was someone who went through a lot. He went from being his father's favorite son with all the advantages that went with that favor to being beaten, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery and thrown in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Yet he did not curse God and God eventually raised him up and promoted him to the highest ranked person in Egypt besides Pharoah himself. Then the day came when there was famine in the land that his brothers came to Egypt begging for food, the very ones who had despised him and sold him into slavery, and he responded in Genesis 50:20

"But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Even Romans 8:28 confirms this: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Another thing to keep in mind is God has a higher purpose.

Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I believe we so miss the possibilities and strength God wants us to have and the person he wants us to become by focusing in only on our comfort and needs. God desires so much to show us how strong we really are in Him. We fall so far below what he means for us to be.

I don't believe God afflicts us but the fact is we live in a fallen world and stuff happens even to the best of us and when it does we have got to decide how we are going to react to it. Are we going to let our ship be bashed to pieces in life's storms or are we going to become the storm. Are we going to let the storm absorb us or are we going to absorb the storm? Are we going to get our eyes on the raging sea around us or are we going to keep our eyes on Jesus and walk on the water in the midst of the storm? It is a choice we all have to make.

This is a modified excerpt from my latest book YOU ARE THE STORM! A Guide To Overcoming The Hardships And Challenges Of Life, a book I highly recommend everyone to read because we all go through hardships in life, if you haven't, you will. This book is full of what God has taught me through the years as I came through a failed first marriage, being a single parent and battling cancer. It isn't just a hype up type book it has some very practical applications of how to deal with life's hardships and challenges.

Benjamin Raven Pressley is a prolific writer and ordained minister and has authored many books and blogs. He is an author, artist, Bible teacher and philosopher. His Cherokee heritage and his knowledge of living in harmony with the planet and God are evident throughout everything he writes. Raven welcomes your questions, input, and visits to his website at WalkingSpiritually.com.