Acts 27:14-20

But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat: Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship; And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

Part of life is the storms we experience. Some are not so bad, while others like in this account, we start to feel like it will never end, and we start to loose hope. I don't know about you but sometimes when experiencing a storm I wonder "why." I believe we can learn alot in this passage about why we experience the storms in our life.

Here we find where Paul was being taken as a prisoner to Rome by ship. The wind was against them according to verse 7 and the going was slow. When they got to the city called "The Fair Havens" Paul advised that they winter there, but they didn't want to stay there that long so they set out and ran into this storm.

Many of the storms in our life come about simply due to impatience on our part. One of our biggest problems is the fact that we are not willing to wait on the LORD for guidence, and we jump into things, bringing our own storms on to us.

Acts 27:10,11

And said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul.

The second mistake we see here is that they took the word of so called "experts" over that of the man of God. Many of us go to church every week, listen to our pastors as they preach God's Word, then we go home and live our lives no differently than we have ever lived them. Many Christians who have problems in their marriage go to an "expert" for their advice, instead of talking to the Man of God. Yet we wonder why Christians are as likely to go through divorce as non-christians. Maybe it's because they are applying the same advice to their marriages. The Bible tells us how to live not only morally, but also tells us how to handle our finances, our relationships with spouses, children, and friends, and much more. For this reason, if your pastor is a  true Man of God, he will be able to give you much better advice than the experts, due to the fact that his advice will be coming from God's Word. Just to give an example of where this has worked in a very public way. One of the best know financial advisers today is Dave Ramsey. His whole concept for how to use money for financial security came from the bible. So just remember, the best "expert" to get advice from may be as close as your pastor.

Third, they sought the advice of the majority. Nothing has changed much since then has it? It seems like anytime you have someone confused in charge, they take a poll. It's amazing to me that where the majority of people make the wrong decisions on a consistent basic, somehow we tend to think that if we get enough people giving their oppinion we will end up with the right answer. We see here in verse 12 and 13 that this is what they did.

Acts 27:12,13

And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west. And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete.

So we see here that one of the mistakes they made which resulted in their being in the storm which cost them everything they had with with them, and left then with no sense of hope, was that they took a poll and decided that the majority had to be right. You know the Bible talkes about the Broad Way that leads to destruction and how many find it. And really if you sit down and think about it, you would have to realise that most of the time, the majority tends to be wrong. Live you life obeying God's Word rather than considering how everybody else does it, and you will have a much more fulfilling life.

One last reason we experience storm is our life though is that some of them are put on us by God to teach us and to try us. In Mark 6:45-52 we see where the disciples experienced a storm and the only reason they were in it was that Jesus "constrained his disciples to get into the ship." Do you reckon Jesus just messed up there and got caught by surprise. Of course not. If they had not been put into that situation they would never have seen Jesus walk on the water. Peter would never have experienced getting to walk on the water himself. God's power was revealed that day in a very special way, and the twelve of them got to see something that nobody before or since has ever seen, because Jesus basically forced them into a storm.

So what can we learn from this. Basically, storms are inevitable. But if we will just have patience, and live our lives according to the Bible, we can at least have the peace of knowing that the storms in our lives are there because God is teaching us something, or getting ready to reveal himself in a very special way. That is much better than knowing that we are in the storm due to our own mistakes.