By Pastor Doug Cox
 
If you have ever been out on a stormy sea you know how unsettling it can be. My dad took me and my sister salmon fishing in Westport, Washington. It was rainy and windy the day we went out, but the captain said it would be fine, so we boarded the boat along with a dozen or so others and watched the shoreline disappear into the distance.
 
Once we got to the fishing area the captain let us start to fish. It was different than any fishing I had ever done before. All I had to do was hold the pole, let the line out after the deckhand baited my hook, then reel it in to check the bait or bring in a fish. It was awesome. So awesome in fact that I hardly noticed the storm had gotten worse making the waves so high they blocked out the masts of nearby boats when we were down between swells.
 
The ups and downs of the sea made almost everybody seasick. They retreated into the cabin but not me. I just kept fishing and ended up catching four very nice salmon that day, the most in the harbor. Had I started looking around instead of focusing on fishing that wouldn’t have happened.
 
Jesus says “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23 NKJV
 
Today we are living in a world where the stormy winds of deception are blowing all around us. We see lawlessness is not just happening in troubled areas of crowded cities it is now commonplace in the highest offices of the land. We’ve watched as cancel culture and wokeism have devastated many lives, businesses and companies. We are aware that many millions of people have crossed over our unsecure borders illegally. Many for nefarious purposes. We have watched DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies force companies and even government agencies to hire people who are unqualified for the job. This insanity almost cost a presidential candidate his life. They still threaten the health of our children.
 
The world is dark and stormy. Jesus said one of the signs before His return will be “distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.” (Luke 21:25) Knowing this makes it all the more important that we put our focus on Jesus and the Word of God. We must keep our eye “good.” Other English translations use the word single instead of good. That makes more sense to me. We must be single minded having our focus on the Lord. Doing that will keep us from being “a double minded person who is unstable in all their ways.” (See James 1:8)
 
So, as we sail forward into the future let’s remember that much of what we hear from the mainstream media is meant to manipulate and control. On the other hand, what Jesus (the Captain of our Salvation) says is meant to equip us for life, to keep us focused and able to have His perfect peace in the midst of the storms. Let’s remember He is still the Master over the storms. He is saying to us like He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” Matthew 8:26 NKJV