HOW TO HANDLE THE STORM CLOUDS WHEN THEY COME YOUR WAY

With all of the verses listed in part 1 and part 2 of Scripture Verses for Trials and Tribulations telling us that we will all have to face a certain amount of trials and tribulations in this life, you will now have to learn how to deal with these storm clouds when they do attempt to come against you.

If and when a storm cloud ever gets ready to come barreling through your door, you will now have three possible options on dealing with this storm cloud. As a Christian, study these three options very, very carefully. God is going to help you deal with any storm cloud getting ready to come your way, but it will really help if you can understand some of the different ways that God will use to deal with this kind of adversity.

The Bible tells us that God’s people can perish for having lack of knowledge – and not having the right kind of knowledge on how to deal with a storm cloud could cause you to get into major trouble and possibly extend the length of the trial more than what the Lord would have really liked.

 

1. Evade the Storm Cloud

This first option and strategy is so simple and effective, and yet so many people have drawn unnecessary trials and tribulations their way as a result of violating this basic common sense rule.

Jesus Himself isolates this particular strategy when He tells us to learn how to turn the other cheek when struck and attacked. However, I do not believe Jesus is telling us to become submissive doormats and punching bags. There is a time to engage and fight, but there is also a time not to engage and fight.

You have to be wise and smart and know when to fight and engage, and when to just let certain matters go. In other words, choose your battles very carefully and make sure you are operating under the guidance and leadings of the Holy Spirit if you are going to engage with anyone or anything.

Here are a few examples on how to put this specific battle strategy into actual operation on the battlefield of life:

1.  You are driving down the highway and all of a sudden someone cuts you off and flips you off. You have done nothing wrong to cause him to do this to you. He is obviously taking out his anger and aggression directly against you for whatever his personal reasons may be.

You now have one of two options. You can either get mad at him, show him that he cannot get way with this, and chase him further down the road and then flip him off once you get even with him. Or you can choose to turn the other cheek like Jesus is telling us to do, and let him drive away from you without trying to take any type of retaliatory action back against him. As a result, he drives away from you and you never see him again.

Many people, because of their own short fuses or their own macho attitudes and mindset, will not be able to let this go, and they will then chase after the man to make sure he sees them flipping him back off. In other words, they will have to get even and won’t be able to let it go.

But they are forgetting one, simple, little thing. They have no idea of who they are dealing with. This other person may be an unstable psychotic criminal who will kill them dead if they attempt to cross him in any way. Not knowing this, they flip the guy back off.

This then sets the psychotic criminal off and he then takes out his gun and shoots directly at you, thereby either killing or seriously injuring you. You have now opened the door to a major storm cloud, and you will now have to deal with the trial and tribulation that this serious injury will now bring on not only you, but the rest of your family members as well. There have been documented cases of innocent people getting seriously hurt as a result of a bad road rage encounter.

And all of this could have easily been avoided had you simply evaded the storm cloud in the first place by turning the other cheek and letting the matter go without trying to get even.

2.  Another area where a storm cloud can be properly handled by simply evading it like a boxer ducking a punch is what our children have to face in their high schools and colleges. As we all know, drugs are still popular on our high school and college campuses.

Each Christian child again has one of two possible options they can take when they are approached by someone trying to get them to do drugs. They now have an official storm cloud knocking on their doors whenever they get tempted to do drugs by another person. They can either turn down the offer, stay on their side of the fence in their walk with the Lord and evade the temptation, or they can give into it in order to be like the other so-called cool kids in their schools.

If they give in and start doing the drugs, they have now opened themselves up to the consequences of what those drugs can do to them. As a result, a certain number of them will end up drawing severe tribulation down on them such as getting hooked on some of the heavier drugs, possibly overdosing on some of them, or possibly get hurt as a result of hanging out with the wrong people who like to use and sell these heavier drugs.

How many of our young children and teenagers have become drug addicts, pushers, and eventually criminals as a result of not evading the initial storm cloud that came knocking on their doors? Again, all of these negative consequences could have easily been avoided right at the very beginning by simply evading the initial temptation to enter into this forbidden world by the Lord.

Many trials and tribulations can easily be avoided and stopped right at your doorstep if you can just learn to say no and stay on your side of the fence with the Lord.

2. Hold Your Position – God Will Fight the Storm Cloud For You

The second strategy is that at times you will have to do absolutely nothing. All you will have to do is hold your position and God will then take the storm cloud out for you.

A perfect example of this is what happened to Moses and the Israelites in the parting of the Red Sea. No sooner does God get them delivered from the Pharaoh’s grip, that they then find themselves before the Red Sea with nowhere else to go. The Egyptian army is coming back after them. They cannot move backwards or forwards. They then have to wait for God to move in some type of supernatural way and then it happens, God supernaturally parts the Red Sea so they can have safe passage to the other side.

What you will find in many of your personal trials with the Lord is that at times God will arrange for circumstances to occur where you will be able to do absolutely nothing on your end. The only thing you will be able to do is to wait for God to move on His end. You will be just like Moses and the rest of the Israelites when they had to wait for God to part the Red Sea. As a result, you will be thrown into some type of waiting mode with the Lord. He will force you to wait on Him in order to test your faith and to also develop patience and endurance in your personality.

Many of the times, you will find waiting on God will actually be harder to do than if you could do something specific on your end. Waiting on God will test your patience and resolve in Him in a way that you will have never known before. But there will be times that the Lord will force you to wait on Him, and if you try to buck Him and do things your way, you will just end up lengthening the trial and possibly cause more grief and heartache to come your way as a result of going in directions that He would not want you to go in.

I have met numerous Christian women who could not wait for God to bring them their true soul mates of His choice. As a result of not being patient enough to wait for God’s timing, they ended up marrying the wrong men and were divorced within a year. And all of the tribulation of having to go through a painful divorce ended up coming their way because they could not wait on God’s perfect timing to bring their true soul mates to them.

This is why it is so important that you learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit, so that you can know when to evade, when to hold your position and let God make the next move, or when to directly engage with the storm cloud, which will now lead us into the next section.

3. Directly Engage With the Storm Cloud

Though there will be plenty of times that God will either have you totally evade and duck away from the storm cloud attempting to come against you, or simply hold your position while He takes complete care of it for you – there will be other times that He will have you face it head on yourself, operating under His guidance, power, and anointing to be able to do so.

In other words, you will have to directly engage with the storm cloud as a brave and courageous soldier of Jesus Christ. And as you are directly engaging with the storm cloud, then God will fight the battle through you as you are directly engaging with it.

One of the most dramatic examples of someone directly engaging with a storm cloud head on has to be the story of David and Goliath. The rest of the Israelite army was too afraid to take on this evil blasphemous creature, but David had enough boldness and courage to directly engage with him. And when he did, God was able to anoint him to be able to strike this giant completely dead with one well-placed blow.

In the Testimonies section of our site, we have plenty of good testimonies showing people being able to receive total deliverance from some of the trials and tribulations they were going through. Many of these people were battling some of these tribulations for quite sometime until they were taught how to go on the offensive operating under God’s anointing. And when they did, it completely turned the tide for them and they were completely delivered from their tribulations within a matter of 24-48 hours!

Many of the times, you can quickly end your trial and tribulation if you will just be courageous enough to directly engage with it operating under God’s guidance and power. But again, you have to totally rely on God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit as to when to engage and when not to engage.
But if you receive a full release from the Holy Spirit to directly engage with any storm cloud getting ready to come your way, do not be afraid to do it. Keep King David as your perfect role model. He was just a shepherd boy when he took on and defeated Goliath.
No matter how big your giant or roadblock may be, realize that absolutely nothing is impossible with the all-powerful God we serve – and that there is nothing that He cannot totally defeat and take out, including any severe storm cloud that may be getting ready to come your way.

Sometimes God will be able to end the tribulation quickly and easily for you, but other times you will be forced to battle the storm cloud for some length of time. Again, God is running the entire show, and He will be the One to decide how long you will have to battle the storm cloud and when it will eventually end. Sometimes these trials will have to last for a certain length of time in order for God to be able to work what He wants to work into your personality as part of His sanctification process with you.

This is part of our 6 parts series on Trials and Tribulations – The Testing of Our Faith.  Here are the other parts.

• 3 Basic Reasons as to Why God Will Allow Trials and Tribulations to Occur in This Life

• The Scripture Verses For Trials and Tribulations

• Part 2 – Scripture Verses For Trials and Tribulations

• Keeping Unnecessary Tribulations From Coming Your Way

 

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