God still quiets storms – 7 December 2020

I want to end off this series with an extract from my new book, God is steeds God (Afrikaans) about Riaan von Gericke, a farmer who farms between Excelsior and Marquard in the Free State.

Riaan nervously walked up and down in their lapa on the farm. His heart was racing. A hailstorm was approaching their farm that could possibly destroy their whole harvest. This storm was different from any other in the past as for the first time ever they did not take out any insurance, but chose to trust God. Riaan shares his story:

Riaan: “Just before the planting season, we received a prophetic word that we had to trust God for protection and blessing of our crops. For the past five years we experienced extreme drought on the farm. We therefore decided to take the step of faith and trust God to protect our crops. Before we planted, we prayed and used communion. We asked for God’s guidance and protection. When we were done planting, we dedicated the harvest to Him once again with the prayer: ‘Lord this is Your harvest. We have no control over whether it will rain or not. We ask that You will protect and bless us.

“Under the lapa, with torrential rain, thunder and hail approaching our farm, I had to fight against my own unbelief and regret for not taking out insurance. If we were to lose our harvest, we could lose our farm. The last Whatsapp message before we lost signal due to the rain, read: ‘Pray for the farmers of Excelsior. The hail is destroying all their crops.
“With tears streaming down my cheeks I addressed the wind and hail in the Name of Jesus Christ. I then said, ‘Lord, this is Your harvest; we are only the stewards of the land with which You have trusted us with. Please keep the hail away from us. I surrender all to You.’ In my heart I believed that even if He does not stop the hail, He would make a way for us to survive in the future.

“The next moment, the wind suddenly changed 180 degrees. I could see it clearly as the wind that forced the rain in under the lapa, completely changed to the other side of the lapa. The dark sky opened up. The cell phone signal was back and I could call my son who farms next to us. His first words were, ‘Dad, it missed us!’ We could not talk further on the phone. We just cried together. What we experienced was the biggest miracle.

“With the hailstorm approaching, my son got into his bakkie and drove towards the storm praying that God would keep it away from our farm. God heard our prayers. Where some of the farmers suffered great loss, our sunflowers’ leaves only had small holes in it. God protected and preserved us that day! We had a above average sunflower harvest and the best maize harvest in seven years! All glory goes to God.”

In Psalm 135: 5–7 we read: “I know that the LORD is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, … He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind …”

God makes the lightning and wind, but He also calms any storm in our lives because He still is the Lord of heavens and the earth. May we continue to trust Him, knowing that He truly is Sovereign in all situations. God bless.

Prayer: Father God, thank You for still reigning in my life. I lay down (name your challenge) before You today. Strengthen my faith when I also struggle with my unbelief. I ask this in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen