Bible Verses for Storms: Thunder Overhead, the Sailors of Psalm 107, and Paul's Shipwreck

Psalm 56:3-4, while the storm is overhead

The passage Bible Nudge offers for fear is Psalm 56:3-4, David's prayer while in danger from enemies, moving between fear and trust. It opens with the danger:

1 Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me. 2 My enemies want to swallow me up all day long, for they are many who fight proudly against me.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, I praise his word. In God, I put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

The psalm's danger is people rather than weather, but its first four words fit either. For somebody shaking at the window, it gives words that begin by admitting the fear, short enough to say out loud when the house shakes. If you worry the fear itself is wrong, is it a sin to be afraid reads this psalm, and the storm on the lake in Mark 4, for that question.

Something to do with it tonight: each time the thunder comes, say verse 3 aloud, once. Then answer the question that goes with it, "What are you afraid of right now, if you say it plainly?" "The thunder" is a full answer. If a child is frightened beside you, the verse is short enough for them to say with you.

If you have been afraid of storms since childhood

The NHS, in the UK, calls phobias "an anxiety condition usually caused by a particular object or situation," says they "usually develop as a child, teenager or young adult," and suggests seeing a GP, a family doctor, if "you think you have a phobia and the symptoms are affecting your life."

One young reader wrote on Reddit's r/Christianity, "I'm 13 and I have a fear of lightning and explosions." A commenter in that thread remembered what they were told as a child: "When I was a kid and afraid of the loud thunder, someone told me that God was bowling". Jewish tradition keeps a blessing for thunder, recorded in the Talmud at Berakhot 59a, a blessing that ends "Whose strength and power fill the world." A family can say it together at the next clap.

The sailors in Psalm 107

Psalm 107 calls group after group of people who were brought through to give thanks, and then it is the sailors' turn, told afterward in the assembly. It describes the fear in the body:

Their soul melts away because of trouble. They reel back and forth, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. Then they cry to Yahweh in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distress. He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still.

Scripture has words for being at your wits' end on the water, and a cry made from inside it.

In Jonah 1, when "Yahweh sent out a great wind on the sea," "the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his god," and they threw the cargo overboard. The captain woke Jonah, "fast asleep" below: "Arise, call on your God!" Jonah, running from the task he had been given, told them the storm was on his account. The sailors still "rowed hard to get them back to the land," and then cried to Yahweh. They prayed and rowed in the same night.

Paul's shipwreck: fourteen days, and a meal

Acts 27 is the longest storm in Scripture. For days "neither sun nor stars shone," the cargo and the ship's tackle went over the side, and hope was nearly gone. Before dawn on the fourteenth day, Paul begged them all to eat, "for this is for your safety." He took bread, "gave thanks to God in the presence of all," broke it, and began to eat. "Then they all cheered up, and they also took food."

The ship ran aground and broke up, and the 276 on board reached land, "some on planks, and some on other things from the ship." For a reader in a long storm night, the prayer and the bread arrive together here. Eat something, and give thanks over it.

The lake at night

Mark 6:45-52 happens before Jesus is in the boat. The disciples are "distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them," and "about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea," saying "Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid." Matthew 8 and Luke 8 tell the same stilling as Mark 4, which the panic attacks page reads closely.

A commenter on Reddit's r/Christianity called Mark 4:39 "a demonstration of His divine authority and not necessarily a prescription", while devotional writers often apply the calm to an inner storm. Both readings stand.

Is thunder God speaking?

The 13-year-old asked it on Reddit: "Is God speaking to me through the thunders?" In another Reddit thread, a commenter saw it differently: "thunder is a natural phenomenon and not something I'd attribute as 'A voice of God'."

Psalm 29 calls the "sons of the mighty" to give glory to Yahweh, and says "Yahweh’s voice is on the waters. The God of glory thunders." Matthew Henry reads it as showing God's "power and terror in the thunder." In Job 37, Elihu tells Job, "God thunders marvelously with his voice." Elijah at Horeb hears the voice after the wind, earthquake and fire, as what the Bible says about loneliness reads it.

If someone has called a storm a judgment

The Catholic Catechism says "There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil" (309), and "With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection" (310). The Westminster Confession, Reformed, speaks of God's "most wise and holy providence" (5.1). The book of Job opens with a sufferer whose friends are sure of the cause; what the Bible says about suffering reads it.

If your home flooded or was damaged

Public Health England's study followed residents of six flooded areas of England after the winter of 2013-14. Waite and colleagues report that three years on, probable depression, anxiety and PTSD were more common among those whose homes flooded than among those unaffected. PHE's summary says "The number of people who experience mental health effects one year after flooding is substantial." Feeling it months later is common among people who went through it. In the United States, SAMHSA's Disaster Distress Helpline takes calls and texts on 1-800-985-5990.

The storms of life

The phrase comes from hymns more than from any single verse. Hymnary dates Henry Alford's "Lo, the storms of life are breaking" to 1844, an Epiphany hymn on that day's Gospel, and the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology has "Will your anchor hold in the storms of life."

Many know the parable at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, the house on the rock: "The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock." The rain, the floods and the wind come to both houses, and the one on the rock stands through them. Isaiah 43:2 is read on new beginnings, and Psalm 46 on stress.

Prayers for rescue

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer of 1662 cries "Save, Lord, or else we perish" and closes "Help, Lord, and save us for thy mercy's sake." The Catholic Mass of Mary, Star of the Sea recalls that God willed Mary "should shine as the Star of the Sea over the raging waters of life."

After the storm, the rainbow

God speaks to Noah and his sons after the flood, making a covenant with "every living creature":

I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. When I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud, I will remember my covenant

The Talmud at Berakhot 59a keeps a blessing for seeing one: "Blessed…Who is faithful to His covenant and fulfills His word." You might say it the next time a rainbow appears.

Where to go next

If the storm has brought thoughts of ending your life, please reach a person tonight. In the United States, call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the UK and Republic of Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists lines by country. After a storm in the US, the Disaster Distress Helpline is on 1-800-985-5990.

The next time the thunder comes, read Psalm 56:3-4 with the verses around it and say verse 3 aloud. If you are carrying something else, Bible Nudge can take it in your own words and suggest one passage. Find a passage.