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Oct 19, 2025 06:00am

When God Leads You Through the Sea: Finding Faith in the Storm

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On May 27, 2025, it happened—my nightmare moment. Life had been perfectly routine and mundane before that, and suddenly, in a few seconds’ time, life changed. I changed. I remember thinking at that exact moment, This is a dream—surely, I am going to wake up any second. Except I didn’t. I was living a real-life nightmare.

All I could do was pray. I prayed . . . and prayed . . . and prayed. In fact, here I am a week later, and I don’t think I’ve stopped praying. I understood the beauty and the strength of 1 Thessalonians 5:17—to pray ceaselessly—because I was living it.

The only thought that kept coming to my mind was this: Why would God allow this to happen? This was a question I would never truly get an answer to. When I voiced this question to my mom, she immediately came back with a response I needed to hear: “Amber, why would God allow me to break my foot on a cruise? You may never get an answer, but know that He allowed it for a reason. And you know that He can bring good from it!”

Yes, I knew. Yes, I had shared this same encouragement with others when they faced difficult times in life. But no, it didn’t feel good to hear. It just left me with this echo of a thought that refused to go away: Why, God? Why?

Here’s the part of God’s sovereignty that never fails to amaze me. I was working on this devotional at the time my life took a drastic turn. Suddenly, it meant more to me. I wasn’t just writing something to encourage others—I was living it. And I felt like I was drowning in distress and anguish. It was an invisible weight I carried with me wherever I went. My soul refused to be comforted, and I cried out to God many times.

I felt much like the psalmist Asaph in Psalm 77. Though our situations were different, we both felt troubled and overwhelmed. We both lacked peace. And we both sought the Lord in our day of trouble.

My feelings told me that if God were a loving God, He wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. I think Asaph struggled with his feelings as well. His questions, though different from mine, still filled his mind: Has God left me? Has He forgotten to show His compassion to me? Is He still faithful?

And yet, Asaph made such a bold move amid his pain and questions—it changed the tone and direction of his mindset. In the psalm, he said, “This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and talk of Your deeds.”

He did something that I can so easily forget when the anguish is overwhelming: he took his eyes off himself and put them on God. He remembered what God had done in the past for him and his people. He meditated on God’s Word. He talked about God’s goodness.

In other words, he stopped listening to his feelings and started preaching to himself.

Our feelings can lie to us, and those unanswered questions can turn us against God. Asaph knew he needed to focus on God and His truth.

Friends, there must be something special in looking back at God’s faithfulness and filling your mind with the hope of God’s Word, because in the next line of this psalm, Asaph begins a little praise and worship session right there in the middle of his lamenting. He proclaimed, “You are holy . . . who is as great as You? You are the God who does wonders. You have redeemed Your people.”

How easy it is to forget this when life is hard! And yet, time and time again, the Bible shows us the power of praise and worship—it reminds us of who our God is. It’s when walls come down, prison doors swing open, armies are defeated, and hearts are strengthened. It’s when we experience God in powerful ways.

Toward the end of this psalm, Asaph says something that can make any believer a little nervous: “Your way was through the sea, Your path through the great waters; yet Your footprints were unseen” (Psalm 77:19).

Asaph recognized God’s sovereignty. And sometimes, God plans to take us through the sea—through that battle, heartbreak, betrayal, conflict, or trial. I don’t like to go through the sea. I want to be saved from it. Or I want to go around it. But through it? That means I am going to have to face those tumultuous waters and endure it. James 1:12 commends the person who perseveres under trial—the person who endures. Romans 5:3–4 says that suffering produces endurance, and endurance refines our character and gives us hope. Isaiah 40:31 calls us to wait upon the Lord, and He will give us the strength to endure.

So many good things come from this uncomfortable word: enduring. I knew I was in a season of enduring. I wish I had a happy ending to my story, but I don’t. I have a story full of God’s strength and goodness—one that I am learning to praise Him for even when it hurts, one that I know He is working His grace and mercy in, and one that He is bringing good out of.

If you, too, are in the tumultuous waters of a stormy sea, take hope in His truth and promises. He hasn’t abandoned you. He hasn’t forgotten you. Sometimes in life, He wants His children to lean in—amid the pain and amid the silence—even closer to Him, to trust Him when we can’t perceive Him. He knows what lies ahead of us. At times in your life, He’s the voice saying, “Follow Me.” At other times, He says, “This is the way; walk in it.”

And sometimes, perhaps during the hardest times in life, He is silent because He is carrying you through it.

Trust God with your sea, friend, and endure. He will make a way.