Ps 34
1I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Ps 9
1I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.
I will, I will, I will, and I will. Regardless of the trials, tribulations, and storms of life, I will praise, glorify, give thanks, be glad and rejoice in the Lord....
We steer our lives through storms and tribulations the way a pilot flies a plane through heavy weather. Clear skies require almost no effort—the plane almost flies itself. But when the turbulence hits, the air turns chaotic, the instruments jump, and the body is thrown around. The worse the weather, the more frequent and deliberate the inputs must become.
Feelings scatter in every direction. They rise and fall, shout and whisper, push and pull. Yet in the end our feelings do not determine the course. What keeps the plane true is the series of decisions and the willpower that executes them. Every correction is an act of the will returning us to the heading.
In the cockpit sit the true instruments: faith, hope, love, joy, and peace. When the weather outside and the feelings inside are saying here, there, and everywhere, these instruments give the accurate picture. They do not move with the turbulence. They keep reporting the real heading—the road called love—so the pilot can keep making the right inputs even when everything else is lying.
In the middle of that noise something steady stands watch. The peace of Christ acts as the umpire in the heart. While fear, frustration, and confusion all shout at once, peace makes the call—this thought is in bounds, that reaction is out; this decision keeps us on course, that one pulls us off. We still have to move the controls. Willpower is still required. But the umpire, working with the true instruments, keeps the inputs true. We do not wait for the weather to clear before we listen; we let peace speak in the middle of the storm.
And here is the deeper truth that holds it all together: the weather is not our reality, just as the map is not the terrain. The storm is real in the moment—it presses and demands attention—but it is temporary conditions, not the ground we stand on, not the identity we carry, and not the destination written over our lives. We fly through it. We do not become it.
So we keep our hands on the controls. We keep our eyes on the instruments. We keep letting peace make the calls. We keep returning, again and again, to the road of love—not because the feelings have settled, but because the decisions and the willpower refuse to surrender the heading the instruments still show. The plane does not have to wait for calm air to stay on course. It only has to stay true to the instruments while the weather does what weather does.
Faith, Hope, Love, Joy, Peace
Please join with your brother in praying over the prayer targets today.
Glory to God
grace and peace
