Even my hero, Oswald Chambers-the mighty spiritual giant who authored the bestselling Christian book of all time (other than the Bible), My Utmost for His Highest-even my hero Oswald Chambers struggled over not being able to pay his rent.  How could God not answer Oswald's prayers!?!

     Same with Tom. Before, when he was still answering the phone, Tom endured the steady mix of soothing promises and abusive threats.  Confident God would answer his prayers, he patiently worked through the telephone calls, making promises where he could pay and trying to explain when he couldn't. 

     Eventually, he just stopped answering the phone, knowing the conversations only served to deepen his despair.  While not every company he owed money hired abusive collectors, shouting was the rule, not the exception.    

     The day the sheriff delivered the foreclosure notice wasn't nearly as humiliating as Tom imagined it would be, but only because he'd suffered so much humiliation by that point the sheriff's visit was just another stop on the long, slow train ride down into the abyss. 

     Where was God in all of this? Where is God in all of this? Tom had been dancing on the edge of those questions off and on for almost two years now, not wanting to waver in his faith but wavering nonetheless.

     Worse, while friends and well-meaning church contacts helped where they could, eventually the hole got so deep it seemed they were throwing good money after bad.  Many of Tom's Christian friends shied away, as puzzled by God's "silence" as Tom; they had no words of comfort and no new ways to help.  So loneliness piled onto despair and doubt.  Even more unbelievable, some of Tom's Christian friends have even hinted there must be a reason God is punishing him by not helping.

     Tom's story is being played out daily, and every reader of this column knows a "Tom" in their circle right now.

     Maybe your storm isn't financial; maybe yours is physical. You or someone you love is seriously ill and you've begged God to fix things, only to see the situation grow more desperate. Or perhaps you're one of the millions who battles against "the black dog", as Winston Churchill termed his depression. Where is God in those desperate moments when even holding on to life itself seems to be all you can muster?

     So, then, why are these things happening? Why is Tom's friend, who cheats and lies his way to prosperity, all set during this new Depression when Tom's slide continues? Why do the children of God suffer the same indignities and trials as those who don't claim Christ as Savior?

     We suffer the same trials and indignities as those who aren't Christians because we are no better or worse than those who don't yet know Him.  To spare us merely because we're saved is to tell the rest of the world God loves them less than us; that we're better or more valuable than others who've not yet met Christ. 

     We're saved by grace, not by our acts, and our salvation is the beginning of an eternal story that one day will end our suffering and trials, but it is certainly not a get-out-of-jail free card from the storms on this side of life.

     God is not absent. He agonizes over your trials exactly the same as He agonized the night Jesus begged Him not to make Him go to the Cross.  It must surely take all the strength of His all-powerful nature not to sweep in and balance the scales of eternity right this minute, right now.  And do so He could, make no mistake about it, but only by erasing from His presence forever every person you and I know who has not yet accepted Christ as Savior. 

     That's right. Our suffering ends, forever, the moment we die, or the moment God stands up to end history as we know it.  But when He stands up, all second chances are ended; every son or daughter, every mother or father, every friend or coworker; every person who matters to us but isn't a follower of Jesus Christ will suffer eternal separation from God and the terrible reality of Hell as the Bible describes it.  So He tarries despite our trials, at least in part to leave open the gates of salvation a bit longer.

     Certainly God can cherry-pick the times when He intervenes; certainly He can and does sometimes act in miraculous and supernatural ways to alter the natural course of trials in our lives; that truth is the hope we cling to as we plead with Him in prayer for others and for ourselves.  Do not ever doubt that God can act.  And like parents who sometimes say no to their children's earnest pleas, for reasons the children could never comprehend, there are times when our Heavenly Father will also say no to us. We're forced, then, to trust His wisdom or not; to trust His eternal perspective, or not.

     How then, do we live under these unbearable struggles? How do we relate to God when we don't understand what He's doing?

     The answer is harder to take than the trial sometimes, but here it is: We who choose to trust God's wisdom and compassion and eternal perspective must stop asking Him to calm the storms in our lives, and instead to calm us in the storms.

     This was the point Jesus made to His disciples during the stormy ride across the Sea of Galilee.  Frightened, they awoke Him from needed sleep because they wanted Him to calm that storm; He wanted them to be calm in the storm because of His presence with them.  Only hours earlier, Peter had been taught the same lesson when he walked for a while on the waters of the sea, only to sink when he failed to trust Jesus to continue to make his walk on water possible.  In trial and triumph, we must be asking God to change our hearts, not merely the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

     For even when God does intervene to end one storm, another always arises.  We, His children, must change how we are in these storms instead of begging for storm-free lives. Let this truth be told: Storms-or the absence of storms-is not a measure of a person's holy acceptance to God; nor are they a measure of whom He loves or doesn't love.

     Oh to be sure, the psalmist teaches us over and over again that it's never wrong to ask God to calm the storms; but the full counsel of Scripture adds to this equation, reminding us that followers of Christ know the real prayer is not for the storms to be calmed, for new ones will always rise, but rather for God to calm us in the midst of the storms.