There are times in our lives when things get very tough. Sometimes it seems as if no one is listening and nor one really cares. We think God has abandoned us or that we have done something that offended Him and He is mad at us. My friends, please don't listen to the lies. Everyday I speak to people going through tough times and it has nothing to do with what they have done or God abandoning them. In fact through these trials and tribulations of life we learn just how close God is to us. In the Psalms, David tells us, "God is near to those with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. As much as your are hurting, Jesus is hurting with you. He sees it all and He desires to comfort you as you walk through this rough time.

Hope in Him and in His word will carry you from glory to glory. It will carry you through the valleys as well as the mountain tops. There is nothing impossible with God no matter how bleak it looks today. I know because I have had those bleak days when I thought there was no way for anything to change. I thought my world was going to fall apart yet in the midst of it all the Lord gave me dreams and visions and comforting words that carried me through each day. It was not over in a day, or even a week, or for that case even a month. This particular trial lasted a few months and my first instinct was to look to everyone else for help, because in my heart I really had lost hope in God. In Proverbs we are told, "hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life. My friends, if you are reading this today and everything in your life looks hopeless and there is no where to look but up, please look up to Our Lord and call on His name. He promises to show us great and mighty things we could not know. He promises to cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose. He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. He is faithful even when we are not.

In the book of Jeremiah, Chapter 32, the Israelites were being overtaken by the Chaldeans. There was famine and pestilance in the land and Jeremiah cried out to the Lord. This is the Lord's response. In verse 27, the Lord says, "Behold I am the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for Me"?

The Lord God of heaven and earth made it clear that day that no matter who stands against us, no matter what comes against us, no matter what enemy is trying to devour us, there is none too hard for Him. We may feel weak but He is strong. We may feel discouraged but we can take courage in Him and His ability to work it all out. We may feel like running away but God is able to cause us to stand and to see the salvation of our God. There truly is nothing too hard for Him. We just have to be willing to let Him walk through it with us. If our hearts remain open to hear from Him, He will send us a word in due season, whether through the Bible, or a friend, or maybe even a dream or a vision. God is not dead my friends, He lives and we serve Him because He does live. He hears your cries and He answers prayer, maybe not exactly the way we thought He would, but He does answer. There is a song that says, " I can sing of Your Love forever," and I want you to know for me it is, "I can write of your faithfulness forever," because there is no one else who could change my heart, change my mind, bless me with the riches of heaven, speak to me in the night seasons and calm me when the winds are blowing every which way. Trust me on this one, I have searched out the people to help, to take the hurt away, to take the pain away, even to take the problem away, but they could not. Why? Because they are not God, Jesus paid the price for our lives and no matter how much someone else wants to rescue us he is truly the Only One that can.

The disciples followed Jesus for three and a half years. They saw all the miracles He did, they listened to all His teaching, He told them of what was to come. Yet the day He was crucified, they stood and watched and their hearts were grieved, their hope for a King was gone. In fact most of them went back to fishing. Three days later Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples. They stood in awe of Him and their hope in who He was and is was restored. We have those days when all hope is lost but when Jesus shows up everything is restored in our hearts, most of all our hope. We then take that hope to others and share what the Lord has done in our lives.

I pray that you will know this hope in Christ Jesus. I pray for you to know the Lord who answers prayer. I pray for you to know the God of all flesh and to know in your heart that there is truly not anything too hard for Him. Whatever your burden is, whatever you are walking through, the same God who rose Jesus from the dead is the same God we serve today. He is able to bring to life those things that seem dead to you. He is able to restore onto you all that has been lost. He is able to cause you to walk in the newness of life because Jesus died for you and for me. Y."

I knew in my heart that these storms were just an earthly comparison to what goes on in the spiritual realm every moment of the day. I know that many of us have experienced storm after storm in our lives and that many of us feel so helpless to cause it to stop and maybe that is because we can't. The storms of life are going to come, sometimes more frequent than others, but they are going to come. How we respond to them and through them is what is going to make the difference in our hearts.

I believe that there are warning signs telling us we are going to go through something, just like Jesus told Peter that satan desired to sift him, I believe the Lord gets us ready for every storm coming toward us. I believe that when we pray some storms can be rerouted in a different direction. With hurricane Charly, Tampa Bay was set for the hit, but right before the hit the storm turned and went another direction. Not that we wanted it to go anywhere else or for anyone to be harmed but bottom line was we were not in control. The storm seemed to have a path of it's own and went across the state doing major damage and even taking some lives.

Still, in the spiritual realm, when we see certain things coming or the enemy comes to us with his lies of impending doom, we can pray and believe God for His very best. If He allows it to come, He will give us the grace to go through it, if He reroutes it and the powers of darkness are dispelled than we can rest in the Lord and be thankful that He cancelled the plans of the enemy in our lives.

I don't think there is one person in Florida who did not feel the weariness from these storms coming one right after another. Everyone was tired, and many had not even completed the repairs from the first storm before we had the fourth one coming. I know we all get tired of the storms of life, we tend to give up on praying because we don't see the results right away. Sometimes we are still getting through one trial and another one comes along in the midst of it. The enemy is a loser my friend and his purpose is to get us to stop praying, to give up in the Spirit and to lay down and let him run over us. But God! He will give us the strength to stand! He will give us grace and the power of His Spirit to stand against the wiles of the enemy. He will bring us through every storm of life and one day we will live in total peace with Him and never have to worry about another storm again.

God is faithful my friends and through all of this, whether it be storms in the natural or storms in the spirit sometimes we just have to BE STILL and KNOW THAT HE IS GOD and that the Lord is in control and will watch over us and bring us through it. It is His good pleasure to give us good things in this life and to strengthen us in our inner man that we may stand on the Rock He has given us, His Son Jesus Christ.

I am asking everyone to pray for the state of Florida, for all those who lost homes, furniture and important possessions. Pray for the weariness to be lifted and for the Power of the Holy Spirit to come through Florida with His Wind that we may all be strengthened and lifted up by the only wind that counts, the Power of Our Living God to bring us through it all.

I leave you with this Word from Jesus found in John 16:33:

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In this world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."