「忽然起了大風暴」－馬可福音 4:37
生活中的風暴有時是驟然興起的：沈重的傷痛，難忍的失望，致命的打擊。有時則是逐漸醞釀的，起初或許像遠方地平線上手掌般的雲朵，但看似微小不起眼困難，卻漸漸演變成遮天蔽日的龐然大物，直到將我們吞噬。
神若要塑造一個人，祂會先颳起風暴。人類的歷史何嘗不是跌跌撞撞，傷痕累累的呢？沒有一個神要成全的人，不是先經過殘酷的風暴，直到他能向神發出一個成熟的禱告：「神阿，得著我，破碎我，成全我。」
一位法國的畫家曾將普世的天才都放進他的畫布中。其中有演說家、哲學家、殉道者...，每一位都在他們生命的面向有顯著的成就；這幅畫中值得注意的是，每一位在他們的專長得到顯著的能力之前，都經過了顯著的苦難。
畫中的前方站著摩西－應許之地所拒絕之人。在他身旁的，是盲眼詩人荷馬，還有失明、心靈破碎的彌爾頓。但還有一位遠超乎眾人之上的，祂的面容毀損，他的形象枯槁。這位畫家應該可以在他偉大的作品下方訂下標題：「風暴」。
你曾受風暴無情的催打嗎？風暴是否使你心碎疲憊，困頓於山谷？還是風暴使你提升，令你站立在日光灑落的山巔，成就你更豐盛，更深邃的生命？風暴有否使你能對那些同樣為風暴所困的人，滿了同情憐恤？
"And there arose a great storm" (Mark 4:37).
Some of the storms of life come suddenly: a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat. Some come slowly. They appear upon the ragged edges of the horizon no larger than a man's hand, but, trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.
Yet it is in the storm that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak He plants it on the moor where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it, and it is in the midnight battle with elements that the oak wins its rugged fibre and becomes the king of the forest.
When God wants to make a man He puts him into some storm. The history of manhood is always rough and rugged. No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer: "O God, take me, break me, make me."
A Frenchman has painted a picture of universal genius. There stand orators, philosophers and martyrs, all who have achieved pre-eminence in any phase of life; the remarkable fact about the picture is this: Every man who is pre-eminent for his ability was first pre-eminent for suffering. In the foreground stands that figure of the man who was denied the promised land, Moses. Beside him is another, feeling his way--blind Homer. Milton is there, blind and heart-broken. Now comes the form of one who towers above them all. What is His characteristic? His Face is marred more than any man's. The artist might have written under that great picture, "The Storm."
The beauties of nature come after the storm. The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm, and the heroes of life are the storm-swept and the battle-scarred.
You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts. Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley, or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept and the battle-scarred? --Selected
