Jim Cymbala - Storm: Hearing Jesus for the Times We Live In

Books by Jim Cymbala

Breakthrough Prayer

(book and audio)

The Church God Blesses

(book and audio)

Fresh Faith

(book and audio)

Fresh Power

(book and audio)

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

(book and audio)

The Life God Blesses

(book and audio)

Storm

(book and audio)

When Gods People Pray

(book and audio)

You Were Made for More

(book and audio)

ZONDERVAN

Storm

Copyright 2014 by Jim Cymbala

ePub Edition August 2014: ISBN 978-0-310-33841-3

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cymbala, Jim, 1943

Storm : hearing Jesus for the times we live in / Jim Cymbala, with Jennifer Schuchmann.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-310-24126-3 (hardcover)

1. United States Church history 21st century. 2. Christian life United States. I. Title.

BR515.C98 2014

243 dc23

2014016662

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Italics appearing in Scripture quotations are used by the author for emphasis.

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Published in association with the literary agency of Ann Spangler and Company, 1420 Pontiac Road S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49506.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover photo: Marcos Welsh / Getty Images royalty free

Interior design: Matthew Van Zomeren

First Printing September 2014

CONTENTS

I sat alone in our twenty-sixth-floor apartment the night a deadly visitor arrived. My wife, Carol, was in Nashville working on a new CD project for the choir. I might have been tempted to leave town with her earlier had I known how violent my unwelcomed guest would become.

Though I had been warned of her likely appearance for hours, I wasnt too alarmed as I awaited her arrival. How bad could it be? Despite the strong warnings, she was only passing through New York, a stopover on her way from the Caribbean to an unknown destination off the coast of eastern Canada. I hadnt yet fully grasped the wrath she would bring or the darkness she would leave behind.

Throughout that ominous day, I had watched the thick clouds churning in the sky as the smog-diffused gray light gave way to a full moon and a wet, shadowy night. Looking out the window, I could see that the stores had closed early due to the unusual weather forecast. Below me, Brooklyn was unusually deserted. The streets were devoid of both people and cars. It was jarring to be in such a large downtown area and not see another soul.

I was lonely and called Carol.

As the night wore on, I heard the wind. It whistled through the walls and rattled the double-plated glass windows. Fifteen months earlier, Carol and I had moved from a house to this apartment. I wasnt yet familiar with how this new high rise would hold, so as the storm outside intensified, so did my anxiety. Driving rain began to pelt the windows. Winds whipped around our building, and debris launched from the streets flew several stories high. The gloomy day became a frightening night. My thoughts raced: How would the building handle what was about to be unleashed?

She blew into Brooklyn with a force I had never experienced. New Yorkers are famously tough, but we were no match for this kind of power. The local television stations reported damage in New Jersey and along the coast. Trees fell in Long Island, taking down power lines. When Sandys punch landed exactly at high tide, she served up murky water like a busted fire hydrant. Seawater rushed into power stations and subways in Lower Manhattan. Hospitals began to evacuate the sick, sending them home or transporting them by ambulance to hospitals farther inland.

The superstorm raged, and I had no idea how deadly she was or how much destruction she left in her path. I wouldnt discover those things until the light of morning. However, that night I saw something I had never seen before. Or rather, I didnt see something Id always seen Lower Manhattan disappeared into the night. The lights that always glowed from the financial district were gone! The power that physically and metaphorically lit the world had been cut off at the source.

To a Brooklynite who uses the skyline of Manhattan to navigate, the way a cowboy uses the North Star, it was unfathomable to think that parts of New York City could just suddenly dissolve into darkness. I thought of all the wealth and influence concentrated in the financial district alone. The people who lived and worked there swayed the entire worlds economy with a few keystrokes.

But now, with their power cut, the great buildings where they worked were dark. And thousands of people who labored there during the week were powerless to do anything about it. It was startling to think how such vast influence could just disappear.

During the next few days, I saw more images of Sandys deadly devastation. Boardwalks and amusement rides had been ripped from their foundations and tossed out to sea. Houses were torn to splintered shreds of plywood, and open gas lines fed flames, causing entire neighborhoods to burn. Coastlines disappeared, and maps would forever be redrawn.

I learned how our church was personally affected. Members lost homes and vehicles. One of our keyboard players had both of his cars washed away. Sadly, up and down the East Coast many people lost their lives.

But the image I kept returning to, the one that haunted me, was the absence of light and power in Lower Manhattan. It struck me that this could be the perfect metaphor for what is happening in the Christian church today.

Is the light of Jesus that we are to shine before people growing dark?

Has another kind of storm cut us off from our power source?

Is the church of Christ disappearing into a dark night?

POWERFUL AND DEADLY STORMS

Superstorm Sandy was bad, but deadlier storms have hit our shores.

In 2008, Hurricane Katrina sent ocean water rushing over the levees, destroying parts of New Orleans, displacing millions of residents, and killing more than 1,800 people. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 took even more lives. When the storm came inland, approximately 8,000 people who chose to ignore the warnings were swept out to sea.