Monday; March 4

A few days ago a preacher-friend of mine was conducting a funeral service and chose the story of Jesus and the disciples traveling across the Sea of Galilee in the midst of a storm as his main text. The minister did a good job of comparing the tempest on the lake with the storms of life, but as he related the story from Mark 4 he mentioned something interesting. Have you noticed what Jesus was doing when the disciples were fearing for their lives – He was sleeping in the back of the boat! Mark puts it this way, “Jesus Himself 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). These full grown men had to wake Jesus up to get Him to do something for them. While they were worried about their uncertain future, Jesus was leisurely sleeping. In a sense it kind of reminded me of parents who are awakened by their children to get rid of the monsters under their beds. The parents (like Jesus) have to get up from a good night’s sleep to deal with an irrational fear.

If you will allow me a little latitude here, how many times have we had to arouse God to deal with our own simple fears? When was the last time we were overwhelmed with a concern to which God simply had to say, “Hush, be still.”? How often have we come before God’s calm, relaxed throne overcome with our own anxiety? I realize that God doesn’t need to sleep, but the analogy of having to wake God up to deal with what appear to be big deals to us does conjure up an interesting application.

Do we trust that our God is big enough to protect us from whatever is out there? If He can quiet the tempest, He can calm our storms.

Think About It!

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