Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots by Mary MarantzSample

Unshakeable

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who are unshakeable. The kind of person who seems to have built their life upon an unwavering, rock-solid stance, their feet always planted shoulder-width apart, heels rooted firmly in the cold, hard ground beneath them. Their eyes fixed on something even higher that no one else around them can ever seem to see.

Let me be clear. I have never been that person. I have always been more like a high-wire

tightrope walker, her confidence built upon the thin, fleeting air buoying up beneath her.

When we tether our lives and our very worth to our achieving, we become like that high-wire aerialist—our confidence constantly rising and falling, forever walking a tightrope between winning and losing, between praise on the world’s lips and the inevitable criticism that comes and knocks the wind right out of us.

But I’m learning that it is in those moments when we aren’t sure if the safety net will appear, this is when our faith is forged in the storm.

I am one of the disciples—the very ones who have already witnessed the miracles Jesus can perform, have seen them with their own eyes—who suddenly find themselves back in that same old boat of still fearing the storm. The Bible tells us that Jesus “awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).

Are we putting our tossed and tumbled hope in this high-wire act of waiting for the next good thing to happen to us—or that we think we can make happen? Or are we day by day putting our rock-solid, unshakable faith in the One who can silence the storm with a word?

God, I thank you for all the ways you are still calming storms. I choose you, God. In you I am unshakable. I am unafraid. Let the wind howl. Let the storms rage. You are the rock that will not be moved. Amen.