Three Storms

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? -- Mark 4:38

I have a paperback NIV New Testament that I keep by my couch to mark up and make notes in before I go to sleep.  Last night I happened to open to the passage in Mark chapter four that tells of Jesus calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee.  I have a note that says:

• A windstorm
•  A storm of fear – human nature.
•  A spiritual storm – demonic

That’s sounds good enough that I probably stole it from somebody, but I have no idea who it might have been.

The point is that a crisis in the physical world can be very limited or very extensive depending upon how we react to it.  In this case, there was a storm.  The waves were boisterous.  The wind was high.  The boat was taking on water, and the best efforts of the disciples did not seem to getting them out of it.  Meanwhile, the Lord was taking a nap.  The storm was the same and the physical facts of what was happening were the same for both the disciples and Jesus.  The difference was that Jesus was dealing with only one storm. 

The disciples, in addition to rowing frantically and fighting desperately to keep the boat headed into the swells, were fighting a storm of fear, which is quite understandable.  They had no doubt seen the aftermath of a small boat that had not been handled properly, the broken pieces of the craft and of the lives that eventually washed ashore.  Their mortality was distinctly visible in the jagged spears of lightning and audible in the squalling, booming wind.  They feared death in the cold waters. 

Jesus knew that He had a destiny and knew that it was not to drown in Galilee.  He had no fear of death that night.  Most of us, though, lack this certainty of the time and place of our end.  How can we handle the natural fears that rise within us?  If we have Christ in our boat, we can be assured that our destiny is tied to His.  I don’t blame His companions nor do I mock them, for I am certainly no better they were.  Sometimes it just seems like it’s time to panic.  We need to see that our lives and our times are in God’s hands, that what comes to us can come only through His permissive will if not by His perfect and sovereign design.  When we understand and fully trust Him, we can rest in the midst of chaos as readily as the Lord went to sleep in that little, storm-tossed vessel.    

The third storm that night was a spiritual one that sprung up at exactly that point of trust.  Gripped by terror and stressed by their exertions, they heard someone, as it were, whisper, “Look at that one sleeping.  How can you think that he cares for you?”  They did not yet know or understand the implications of the Incarnation.  God was still, to them, distant and not a little frightening.  He might -- for all they knew, forget them, crushing out their lives as thoughtlessly as a human might crush an ant that happened to get under foot.

I understand that feeling, that God can’t possibly care about me, that He either isn’t in control or simply lets things happen to see what I will do like a lab rat in a maze.  The devil knows how to pitch his line to get us thinking that God cannot be trusted in every situation.  When the storm outside is raging and the waves look like mountains and there is darkness and destruction all around, it really does not take all that much to make some of us cry out with those disciples, “We’re dying here. Don’t You see?  Don’t You care?” 

I don’t know what would have happened if they had let Jesus sleep on.  I tend to think that if they could have held on a little longer and trusted God a little more, they could have beaten that storm, but maybe not.  That storm could have been tailor-made to send them to the bottom of the lake because they needed to see for themselves the power that rested upon the Man they called Rabbi. 

Sometimes a storm will come to test our strength and build our muscles and our stamina to endure and overcome.  God wants to toughen us and train us for some greater challenge.  Then there are the storms that are so much beyond us that we can make it through only if we get Jesus in the middle of it with us.  Either way, we can trust that God knows us well enough to know what we can handle.  If we are abiding in Christ and He in us, we will get through it either way.