While I was in Peru, there was a very peculiar event that happened to me and 4 other people. We were trying to buy lumber for different projects that we were going to carry out while we were working in Belen, a very poor section of Iquitos, Peru. The 5 of us were in a rented boat that had a cheap blue tarp right over the middle of it. Two of us were part of the mission team that had come down, another two, the missionary and his son, and the final was Raul, a man who lived and worked with the local church in Belen. As Raul was sorting out which place had the best wood at the cheapest price, a began to roll in overhead. The four of us looked up and began to want Raul to hurry up so we could rush down the river back to his house. While on the banks of the lumber mill, a man to our left in a much larger, lumber-hauling boat called out to us and asked if we wanted to take shelter on his boat until the storm had calmed. Robert, the missionary, told him that it wasn't too far of a ride and that we would just take our chances before the downpour. Raul came back onto the boat moments later and we set sail on the rush back to his house. Not even a minute or so later, the impending "doom" had decided to unleash itself. We immediately tried our best to take shelter under the cheap blue tarp and almost immediately the storm ripped the tarp right in half. We then tried to grasp the tarp in our hands and cover ourself with the remains of the tarp but it ultimately ripped in our hands and were left with no other choice but face the downpour. Raul and Robert eventually found shelter in a nearby floating house and we waded out the storm for another few minutes till it decided to die down so he could boat back to Raul's place.
A few months ago I was reminded of this event that happened to me just last summer on my trip to Peru. I began to connect this event to what we often try to do today, which is fill the void that is inside us. Often, as human beings, we try to fill the void with something that we think and believe will make us happy or content. We often try to fill it with relationships, intimacy, drugs, legalism, physical strength or size, but basically anything that ISN'T Jesus. I know from experience that trying to make yourself content with these various different things we fill our lives with will just not be able to help us through life. Just with the tarp, when the storms come, these various different things will just fail us and not be able to last through the storms that life will bring us. The only thing, or person, that can fill the void and help us get through the storms is Jesus. In Philippians, Paul writes to the Christians at Philippi, while he is in prison. In the letter he rejoices, not because he is in chains, but because his faith is firm and secure in Jesus Christ. In Chapter 4 of the book, Paul says in v. 11 "...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." In verses 12-13 he says, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Just as Paul did in his rough situation, We should take shelter under the only roof that will shelter us through the storm, his quote on quote "secret", Jesus. In v. 13, Paul said he could get through any hardship that came his way because of Christ, the one that gave him strength. We should do the same exact thing. Don't have the World as your Tarp, but have God as your House.
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