Sometimes the answer to a prayer is a storm.

The area of the United States where our family lives has been in a blistering heatwave of near 100 degree temperatures every day and experiencing moderate to extreme drought.

To keep my spring plantings alive, I’ve been watering pretty much daily. As I pull hoses and sprinklers across our acreage, lawns all around are turning brown and newly planted trees are dead already. 

Because our water source is a well, I began praying for rain. And tonight the heavens opened. No more waterless clouds. The wind picked up. Trees began to sway. In rolled thunder that shook the walls, reverberating through the house. With it came lightning in ear-piercing crackles and flashes that lit the night sky. My husband said it sounded as though our home would get a direct strike.

With all this noise and fury came the long sought rain in pulsating waves, the result of the first Atlantic named storm of the season: Beryl.

Just as a prayer for rain may finally be answered with a storm, it may be God wraps His answer to other prayers in some sudden tumultuous, earth-shaking event.

I’m going through a bit of a life storm at this moment. A long sought answer to prayer has come and with it some strong headwinds I’d rather not walk through.

I have had to remind myself that God has told His people to ask and we will receive. He has not told us how the answer will come or that it will be sweet and easy to swallow. Getting what God has for us may mean enduring a cold, soaking downpour of scary proportions.

The way God works is most often not the way we’d do it, something we understand or would choose. It’s great when it does happen, but we really should not expect it. He is God. We are not.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8)

As I set my face to an unexpected storm, I rely on what I know about God:

1.  He  loves me. (1 John 4:16)

2.  He has promised always to be with me no matter what. (Hebrews 13:5)

3.  He always keeps His word. (Numbers 23:19)

4. He always leads me in triumph in Christ Jesus. (2 Corinthians 2:14)

I know of only one way to get through a storm and to experience the good it’s intended to bring:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)