Hurricane Ian: Category 4 with 155 mph winds
Calm before the storm waiting or WAYTing with peace
Waiting in Florida
The calm before the storm means waiting for the worst to happen today. After the Category 3 Hurricane Ian hit Cuba, it has strengthened across the Gulf of Mexico to become Category 4 in the catastrophic destruction area with high winds 155 mph, nearly a Category 5, with extreme coastal storm surge waves over 12 feet high, and several feet of water.
That means power outages, trees falling over roads and on houses, flooding that inundates buildings, people displaced or in danger.
Waiting in anxiety
Waiting in a state of anxiety produces other challenges. Preparing emergency supplies and listening to news updates may trigger extra negative stress. Millions of people are affected across the state.
Instead of waiting in anxiety, WAYT.
W — What
A — Are
Y — You
T — Thinking
Waiting in Thinking
Instead of anxiety, there is another option. Look at Romans 8:1–11 to give peace and life by shifting your focus.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Read it. Read it again and again. Memorize it. Practice it.
WAYTing in peace
Waiting can produce more anxiety because of the unknown. Where will it land? What will it do? Anxiety-producing thoughts of the flesh produce more death than life-giving action and peace. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).
Knowing that the saving grace of God causes Jesus Christ to live in me, gives me peace. He is leading me. My flesh is not. He is identifying and guiding my focus. My flesh is not worried. I listen to His alerting me where to go and what to do and when to move. My flesh panics. My Lord does not.
I am at peace, resting in Jesus to have peace in the storm.