“The LORD sat as King at the flood; yes, the LORD sits as King forever. The LORD will give strength to His people; the LORD will bless His people with peace.” Psalm 29:10-11 (NASB)
God was King at the flood.
That flood, of course, was the worldwide flood in Genesis 6, when Noah herded his family and two of each animal into the ark.
Imagine living back then! As the rains kept on pouring, wouldn’t you have asked, “Where is God?”
It’s a question we ask today: “Where is God when bad things happen?”
Verse 10 tells us the answer: He’s still on His throne.
Suffering, hardship and even disaster do not mean that God is off His throne. He is sovereign even in the midst of disaster.
So what does this mean for us today?
In Genesis 9:11, God promised never to flood the entire earth again. But we still face overwhelming floods in our personal lives, don’t we?
We all have seasons when troubles rain down and when anxieties rise like floodwaters.
And so this Psalm has a timely reminder for us: God is sovereign over all of it. He can stop the rain any time He chooses, but He can also use the rain in our lives to bless us.
Look at verse 11: “The LORD will give strength to His people; the LORD will bless His people with peace.”
If the floodwaters never rose and swept us off our feet, we’d never realize our need for God. When times are good, we walk around thinking we’re strong and that our stress-management techniques are sufficient.
So we need the floodwaters.
We need the floodwaters to wreck our self-sufficiency.
Because the truth is we are not enough.
We are not tougher than our circumstances.
And we don’t “have this.”
We need God.
It’s only as our strength fails in the struggle stay to afloat that we see our need and reach out for Him.
But guess what?
The second we reach out for Him, He’s there to help—flooding our weakness with His strength and flooding our anxious minds with the peace of His presence.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation. www.lockman.org