The storm on the Sea of Galilee didn’t just whip up the wind and the waves, it sent everyone into a panic. Even the hardened fishermen among them who would have been used to bad weather were reduced to terrified children. Well, almost everyone…
As the disciples panicked and prayed, Jesus stayed asleep. The disciples were only too aware of the danger and the risk. They knew that waves of that size could overturn their boat and take their lives, but Jesus stayed asleep!
Two thousand years later, we are still as often found panicking in the boat. When life gets tough, we can spend a lot of time and energy wondering when Jesus is going to wake up and do something! In times like this, our faith is being tested.
Eventually Jesus acted, and the storm was silenced as quickly as it came. He calmed the wild sea as it was raging:
“Quiet! Be still.”
(Mark 4:39, The Message)
He is still the same Lord, and He’s got the power to calm the winds, the waves, and the panic within us. He still has the power to take a story that begins with fear and end it with faith.
When a crisis tests your faith, remember that Christ is strengthening you. He wants you to learn to look to Him, to trust Him even in the middle of the fiercest storms of life. And like a muscle, as we work, it gets ever stronger. This is how men and women of faith are made: they live in the knowledge that God protects them.
God bless you as we enter this fall season,
Pastor John