I went on retreat recently, to the Sannox Centre on the beautiful Isle of Arran. It happened to be during ‘Storm Ciara’ so my retreat was extended by a couple of days. But there was something quite special about a time of solitude and retreat in the midst of a storm. I also happened to be reading ‘God Untamed’by Johannes Hartl and the timeliness of reading this book while stranded on an island during a storm also felt significant.

In modern day evangelical Christianity we tend to focus mainly on the kind, gentle, comforting, quiet and calm Jesus – the God who came down to our level to make Himself better known to us. Yet no matter where we prefer to focus for the sake of our comfort, He remains the wise, mighty, breathtakingly holy, staggeringly beautiful, fearfully majestic God of justice and righteousness who is powerful and wild. To quote C.S. Lewis and his famous line about the Jesus-like character Aslan: “He’s good, but he’s not a tame lion.”

During ‘Storm Ciara’, I feel like I caught the tiniest glimpse once again of this God that Johannes talks about in ‘God Untamed’. Here is my attempt to express that experience and encounter.

“We talk about the ‘eye of the storm’,

that place of calm, stillness, quiet where God sets us

and we are held by Him in peace and safety while the storm rages around,

as if He were somehow separate from the storm.

But what if God is the storm?

What if He is the swelling, heaving, white-capped sea,

impassable, unstoppable?

What if He is the powerful and relentless wind

that interrupts human plans,

no regard for our preferences, schedules, timekeeping?

I would like to suggest that

He is just so.

He is the wild, relentless wind

into which I must either lean,

or become flattened by.

He is the churning, roaring sea

inspiring awe, fearful wonder.

It is futile to resist,

to fight the One who can not,

who will not,

be contained.

But rather the time comes to submit,

to surrender,

to the One who is untamed

and untameable.

So as I lean into the storm

and the majesty within,

I kneel in acquiescence, in worship.

And suddenly

I find myself in the centre, the heart

of the wildness and the danger.

And I find

that I am at peace,

I am at rest.

And from this vantage point

my eyes see another side to this storm.

In the swirling and whirling

there is a laughing joy,

a playfulness in the wildness.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit

move, dance, chase.

I am invited in.

Wonder of wonders!

To enter the storm

to risk being lost,

swallowed up,

only to discover

myself in His centre.

Invited in

to play, to dance, to move, to rest

held within the wildness.”