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By J. Adam Tyler
Guest Columnist

In January 1949, a U.S. Navy submarine sailed across the Pacific Ocean with a young lieutenant on watch. A storm was brewing, and waves crashed over the sub and those on deck. Two hours after midnight, an enormous wave approached from dead ahead. There was nothing else for the young officer to do but duck down and grab the safety rail, but even that did not keep him in place. The wave picked him up and washed him backwards. He landed on the deck and clung on for dear life until the wave passed; then he climbed back to the bridge and tied a safety rope around his waist. That officer later said that if the sub had been hit from any direction but straight ahead, he would have been washed overboard and lost at sea.

What future president Jimmy Carter did at that point is all anyone can do when the storms of life come our way: he grabbed on to something firm and held on to it until the storm passed. He would do the same repeatedly throughout his incredibly long and impactful life; his passing last weekend has drawn recognition of, among other things, his deep and abiding faith in God that sustained him in many storms, including this last great transit.

The Scriptures that President Carter loved and studied and taught in his Sunday School class in Plains, Georgia, are filled with expressions of faith and encouragement to trust in God through the storms of life. Psalm 23, that most well-known of psalms, says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.” Psalm 46 speaks of God as “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Moses told Joshua in Deuteronomy 31, as Joshua faced tremendous challenges ahead, that God “will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you.” And in the Gospels, the disciples experienced a storm on the Sea of Galilee and grew afraid, even though Jesus was asleep with them in the boat; at their cries of despair, he awoke and stilled the storm.

We are setting sail into a new year. I don’t know what 2025 will bring to us as individuals or as a town or region, but my guess is that there will be some storms. When the waves of trouble break over us, do we have something secure to hold onto? Can we grasp hold of something that will see us through? The Bible teaches that God can be, and wants to be, that secure place for us. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear…though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam.” (Psalm 46:1-3) Whatever storms come in 2025, hold tight to God. He will help us endure.

REV. DR. J. ADAM TYLER is the senior pastor for Farmville Baptist Church, and he can be reached by email at pastor@farmvillebaptist.org.