Louie Giglio - The Comeback: Its Not Too Late and Youre Never Too Far

We all share one thing in common. In all our lives there will be winds that blow. Headwinds of difficulty brought on by our own decisions and gale-force winds of adversity due to circumstances we never saw coming.

Yet, ultimately, God is in charge of the winds.

That means a sovereign Godwho is both good and glorioussits above the fray and his plans will always prevail, even when our plans dont.

This kind of thinking stretches our understanding and calls us to believe again that God is good and has good in mind for us, no matter what we see happening around us.

I think back to our May 2003 Passion Conference. Tens of thousands of college students and young adults were heading to a ranch property north of Dallas-Forth Worth to worship God and pray for their generation. That particular conference was going to be an outdoor event where people would camp in tents on the property. It was scheduled for two days and three nights. The day before the gathering officially started our team was on-site working feverishly to finish the final details.

The night before the majority of people were scheduled to arrive, thunder and lightning struck and threatened to blow all our plans apart. If youve ever lived in central Texas you know the storms come quickly and can be fierce. That night the rain fell with a fury. The storm sat directly on top of the ranch and wouldnt budge. We later discovered that the storm didnt show up as a potentially dangerous orange or red cell on the weather radar. A purple cell was overhead! It rained for eight hours straight, and in the morning, while it was still raining, we had to make a decision: cancel the conference or somehow go forward with it.

The ground was a quagmire, squishy to the point it would swallow your shoe or boot and not give it back as you pulled your foot away. You couldnt take a step on the property without a fight, much less drive a car on it. And this was before the era of social media and instant updates. We had no idea what to do.

So we prayed.

We prayed and prayed and prayed. In fact, that same first night just before the rain had begun to fall with such force, wed gathered a group of our speakers and leaders and were praying in a huge tent for God to show up in power during OneDay 2003. Suddenly, the tent was getting sloshed by wind and rain and we started praying harder. We were calling for the wind and the waves to cease, but soon, we couldnt even hear ourselves, the storm was so loud. And we had all the spiritual heavyweights in that room praying with all the faith we could muster.

But the louder and harder we prayed, the louder and harder it stormed. Finally, one huge gust came along and lifted a portion of this massive tent on its poles and then lowered it back again. At that exact moment, a huge lightning bolt struck the ground maybe a hundred yards away from the tent. Thunder boomed in our ears like a cannon shot. Everybody ran for cover.

Including me.

Always God and Always Good

Sometimes life is like that.

Youre living with good intentions, praying with all your heart, aiming for Gods best, but the storm just blows harder, the rains keep falling. That can be really tough to deal with. Usually, the storm seems to be a sure sign God isnt with us. And often we actually think he may just be against us.

When youre in the midst of a storm, its hard to remember that God is always good and glorious, and that Gods plans will always prevail, even when yours dont.

Our RVs were set up some distance away from the main tent, and thats where we headed when we all ran. I felt so confused, so bewildered, so frustrated with what was happening; so disappointed.

Around midnight, the rain was still pelting the ground. I couldnt sleep. I knew the conference was doomed. My wife Shelley and I got down on the floor of our RV sometime early in the morning and wept. We literally sobbed. It felt like an entire year and a halfs worth of work was destroyed. All of our hopes. All of our dreams. All of our finances. All of our prayers were being washed away. We just cried out to God, Please, please let the storm pass. But all we heard was more rain pounding the top of our RV.

At 4 a.m. it was still raining.

At 5 a.m. it was still raining.

At 6 a.m. it was still raining.

At 7 a.m. it was still raining.

At 7:30 a.m. everybody was up, and we held another meeting.

During the night the tents of those already on-site were literally blown away or submerged in water. Lightning had struck one attendee, but fortunately they were going to be ok. Thousands waiting in their cars at the registration center were diverted in the night to a local high school gym. Who knows how many en route had turned back.