This 5-day devotional draws directly from Ed Boston's sermon “Old Union Church - June 14, 2026” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
When the Storm Keeps Raging
Monday — Understanding the Truth
Have you ever prayed for something to get better — and it just... didn't? Not yet, anyway?
Today's Scripture "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." — Job 1:21
Reflection Here's a truth that doesn't always feel comfortable at first: storms are part of life. Not because God is absent or indifferent, but because this world is not yet the way it will one day be. The question was never if storms would come. The question is what we do when they arrive.
Job lost everything in a breathtaking span of time — his children, his livelihood, his health. And yet his response wasn't denial or despair. It was worship. Not because the pain wasn't real, but because he knew something deeper was also real: God had not left.
That's the foundation this week is built on. Storms remind us that we are not in control — and that's actually okay, because Someone who loves us deeply is. There's a strange relief in that, once you let it settle in. You don't have to hold the whole world together. You never could.
A ship's captain doesn't learn to navigate on calm seas. He learns in the storm. And some of what we learn about God — his nearness, his faithfulness, his strength — can only be learned when the waves are high.
This week, we're going to walk through what it looks like to trust God not just when life is easy, but when it isn't.
Today's Step Think honestly: is there a storm in your life right now that you've been trying to manage on your own? Simply name it — to yourself, and to God.
A Closing Thought You don't have to have it figured out. You just have to know who does.
Your Help Has a Name
Tuesday — When It's Hard
It's one thing to say "God is with me." It's another thing to feel it at two in the morning when the worry won't stop.
Today's Scripture "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." — Psalm 121:1–2
Reflection Here's where it gets honest: sometimes trusting God in a storm feels impossible. You pray, and the situation doesn't change. You wait, and the answer doesn't come. You reach out to friends, and even the best of them can only do so much. Resources run thin. Patience runs thinner.
And in those moments, a quiet, unsettling question creeps in — Is God actually doing anything here?
That's not a faithless question. That's a human one. The psalmist felt it too. He looked around at the hills — the horizon, the distance — searching for relief. And then he made a deliberate choice to redirect his gaze. Not to a feeling. Not to a circumstance. To the Lord who made those hills in the first place.
People will disappoint us, even when they mean well. Resources can run out. Professionals do their best, but their best has limits. God's strength, though — it never runs out. The same God who spoke the universe into existence is not stumped by your situation.
That doesn't make the waiting easy. But it does mean you're not waiting alone, and you're not waiting on someone who might fail you.
Today's Step When worry creeps in today, try this: instead of pushing it down, bring it up — say out loud or in writing, "My help comes from the Lord." Let that be your anchor, even if you have to say it more than once.
A Closing Thought God doesn't run out of strength. Not today, not ever — not even for what you're carrying right now.
Praise Before the Answer Comes
Wednesday — Putting It Into Practice
What if the most powerful thing you could do in the middle of a hard season isn't fix it — but praise your way through it?
Today's Scripture "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation." — Habakkuk 3:17–18
Reflection Habakkuk wasn't writing from a place of ease. He was staring at total loss — crops gone, livestock gone, livelihood gone. And he chose praise anyway. Not because he felt like it. Not because the circumstances changed. But because praise shifts your focus from the storm to the one who is greater than the storm.
That's not wishful thinking. It's a spiritual discipline with real effects.
When Paul and Silas were locked in prison, they didn't whisper defeated prayers in the dark — they sang. And the doors came open. Their praise came before their miracle.
So what does this look like practically today? It might mean starting your morning by thanking God for three specific things before you check your phone. It might mean putting on a song that reminds you who God is and letting yourself actually feel it. It might mean writing down one way God has come through for you in the past — and letting that memory strengthen your trust for right now.
Praise doesn't always change your circumstances immediately. But it will change you — and that matters more than you might think.
Today's Step Choose one small act of praise today: a song, a written prayer of thanks, or simply saying out loud, "God, you are still good" — even if it feels like a stretch.
A Closing Thought Praise is not pretending the storm isn't real. It's declaring that God is more real than the storm.
The Storm That Became a Story
Thursday — What This Looks Like in Real Life
Have you ever looked back on a hard season and thought, I never could have made it through that on my own?
Today's Scripture "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." — Romans 8:28
Reflection Imagine a woman sitting in the middle of the hardest year of her life. One crisis after another, arriving before the last one has even settled. A health scare. Financial strain. Loss. The kind of year where you stop being surprised by bad news because it just keeps coming.
And yet — she makes it through. Not because the storms stopped coming on her schedule, but because, looking back, she can trace the fingerprints of God in places she couldn't see at the time. The friend who showed up with exactly what was needed. The resource that appeared at just the right moment. The strength that came from somewhere she couldn't explain.
She didn't have the whole map. She had a flashlight — just enough light for the next step.
That's how God often works. Not always with dramatic, immediate rescue — though sometimes that too — but with steady, faithful presence. Grace that arrives in portions: enough for today, enough for this moment, enough for the next step forward.
Romans 8:28 doesn't promise that everything will feel good. It promises that God is working all things toward good for those who love him. The storm may not be over yet. But it has an expiration date — and God is already at work in it.
Today's Step Think of one past storm you made it through. How did God show up — even if you didn't recognize it at the time? Let that memory speak hope into where you are now.
A Closing Thought One day this season may become the very story that helps someone else hold on. God wastes nothing.
You Can Praise Him in This
Friday — Carrying It Forward
The weekend is here — and maybe the storm you walked into this week is still there. That's okay. You don't have to have it resolved to move forward with hope.
Today's Scripture "I will praise you in this storm, and I will lift my hands, for you are who you are, no matter where I am." — Casting Crowns, Praise You in the Storm (inspired by Psalm 121:1–2)
Reflection This week, we've been building toward something simple but profound: faith isn't proved on the sunny days. It's proved when the storm is raging and we still choose to trust God.
We've seen that storms remind us we're not in control — and that's actually a place of freedom, not defeat. We've seen that our greatest help comes from the Lord, not from our own ability to manage everything. We've seen that praise isn't passive — it's one of the most active, courageous things a person can do in the middle of hard circumstances.
As you head into the weekend, carry this with you: the goal isn't a storm-free life. The goal is a faith-filled life. One where, even when the bills pile up, the answers are delayed, and the road ahead is unclear, you can still say — God is good. God is faithful. God is with me.
That's not denial. That's not pretending. That's the deepest kind of trust — the kind that holds even when it costs something to hold it.
Bring your storm to Jesus this weekend. You don't have to have the right words. Just come.
Today's Step Before the weekend pulls you in every direction, take two minutes to be still and say this: "God, I don't have this figured out — but I trust you. You are with me in this."
A Closing Thought The storm may still be raging. But you are not alone in it — and it will not have the last word.