Mightier Than the Waters

Psalm 93:4

KJV — "The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."

NASB95 — "More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty."

ESV — "Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty!"

This week the waters rose all at once. The café opening slipped again. My assignments for the pastoral course piled higher than I could clear in an evening. Our staff numbers keep shifting under me, and the hire I have been praying for still has not come through. Even our systems seem to loop back on themselves instead of resolving forward. And then, of all things, SY and I clashed over a point of Scripture — the one place in my week I least wanted a wave to break. I felt, quite honestly, as though I were drowning in a myriad of troubles all arriving on the same tide.

Psalm 93 does not deny that the waters roar. The psalmist names them plainly — "the pounding waves" of a sea that will not stay still (v. 3). But before that, and after it, he places something steadier: the Lord "robed in majesty and armed with strength," seated on a throne "established long ago" (vv. 1–2). The throne is not shaken by the storm. It was never level with it. And so the psalmist can say, without flinching, that the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters.

What has held me this week has not been the resolution of any one problem — the café is still delayed, the staffing gap is still open. What has held me is God's presence in the middle of the noise. I have felt it in small, undeniable ways: in the boys at The Gateway who are starting to behave differently without being told to, in the way our various locations keep getting managed even when I cannot see how, in help arriving from directions I did not ask for. None of that made the waves smaller. It simply reminded me who is seated above them.

I do not think all our trials will resolve quickly, and I will be honest — it is not always easy to see God's provision while I am still standing in the water. Mysteries remain, and SY and I still have a conversation to finish with more grace than we started it. But this promise has not moved: the Lord is not merely stronger than today's storm. He is present in it, on His throne, before the waters ever rose.

Lord, when the waters rise faster than my faith, remind me You are already seated above them — not distant from the storm, but present within it. Steady my home, my house, and my hands. Give SY and me the grace to finish well what we started poorly. Amen.