“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was swamped. Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” -Mark 4:37-38
I spent four months working in the church in Jamaica. I was stationed just outside Montego Bay. The place where I was staying was situated up on a hill, and from the front porch, I could see down to the beach and the water’s edge. During my stay, frequent storms would arise. They were the grand coastal storms that would come in from the ocean. The sound of the rain would be deafening as it fell in sheets so thick that you could hardly see through it; Trees would bend from the force of the wind; Waves crash almost violently on the beach below.
Whenever these storms arose, I would sit on the front porch and watch the storm for hours. See, I love storms. I love the sound they bring and the smell of the rain as it falls. I find storms wonderful, inspiring, awesome, and even beautiful. Well, if you view them from the safety of a porch! Let’s be clear: when you sit safely on a covered veranda, a storm can be wonderful. But it’s another thing altogether when you are caught in the thick of it. Whether you are caught unprepared as you walk along the road, driving in your car with your windshield wipers unable to keep up, or in a boat stuck in the middle of a lake, storms don’t seem wonderful. In those moments, storms are all-consuming, frightening, and threatening.
We read about this very thing in scripture. The disciples find themselves caught in a storm on Lake Gennesaret. But on top of the furious squall that erupts around them, they also faced an uncomfortable reality: Jesus appeared to be sleeping through it all. Jesus, the only one with the power to still the storm, seemed disconnected from what they faced. He snoozed as they struggled. He dreamed while they despaired. And so, at some point, they wake Jesus and post an uncomfortable question: “Jesus . . . do you not care?”
If you have ever asked such a question, here are three things to remember when Jesus appears silent amid life’s storms.
1. A Storm is Not a Punishment.
The situation is quite simple. Jesus had been teaching on the side of Lake Gennesaret for hours. As night approached, he invited the disciples to journey with him to the other side of the lake. They left the crowd and began sailing across. Jesus, obviously tired from the day of teaching and healing, fell asleep in the stern of the boat. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the storm that arose quickly and violently.
As people of faith, we can easily misconstrue the storms of life as some divine punishment. We may believe that we’ve done something to anger God and that all we face is the result of some unconfessed sin in our lives. Sadly, I have heard preachers proclaim this from the pulpit. They suggest that any hardship, difficulty, or struggle is evidence of divine Judgement. Such things would not happen, it is claimed, if we were more faithful.
Such messages are condemning and completely contrary to the testimony of scripture. The gospel account is clear: Jesus doesn’t bring about the storm upon the disciples. He doesn’t cause misfortune to happen. The storm is but the result of air currents and down-pressures. Geographically, lake Gennesaret was prone to such storms. Two large valleys on the western side of the Lake funneled the wind and caused the waves to swell over seven feet tall.
If you are going through a storm in your life, please know that the storm is not a punishment. Jesus did not cause the storms to erupt in some sort of divine fit of rage. Storms simply come. Yes, they can be hard to experience and exhausting to fight against, but they do not testify to the Lord’s displeasure over us.
2. Jesus Is with Us.
Even if we acknowledge that storms are not divine punishments, it can be easy to feel that Jesus abandons us to the storm. We mistakenly believe that Jesus doesn’t seem present because he doesn’t care about us, and we internalize a deep rejection.
The disciples do the same. We aren’t told how long the disciples struggled with the storm or how long Jesus slept during it, but we do know that at some point, they began to feel abandoned by their Lord. At one point, they wake the slumbering savior with a question that shows their exhaustion and sadness: “Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing?” They see the sleeping Jesus as a sign of his utter dismissal.
Have you ever gone through something where the calm, serene journey that you thought was before you suddenly became anything but? It may have been a diagnosis, a job loss, a relational breakdown, or it may sometimes be different altogether. When such storms arise, we find ourselves struggling to keep ourselves steady; all our energy, resolve, and faith are spent fighting against being swallowed up by the storm that bears heavily upon us. And yes, we question whether Jesus cares about us or even notices the storms we face.
We must not condemn ourselves if we have such questions, for we are just doing what all disciples do from time to time. But let us not miss a fundamental truth that is so simple it can be easy to miss: Jesus is in the boat! While Jesus does not stop the storm from coming upon the disciples, he does remain in the storm-riddled boat along with them.
Ultimately, Jesus is asleep, not because he is unconcerned about the disciples but because he is unconcerned with the storm. Jesus is in the boat, and that means that there is no wind strong enough to blow them off course and no wave big enough to drown away his presence. Furthermore, he quiets the wind and the waves not to prove that he can make the storm go away but to show that we can trust his presence when the storm seems to remain.
3. Where Do We Look?
It is an uncomfortable truth that Jesus does stop the storms from coming into our lives. Waves may crash, and winds may howl, and such things can be hard to experience. But such a storm is never a sign of the Lord’s abandonment. In fact, when the storms of life arise, we are given the opportunity to reach out to the Lord, to grasp his presence as our lifeline.
Amid the storms of life, we have a choice as to what we focus on. We can focus on the wind, the waves, and the furious squall erupting around us, or we can focus on the savior who remains with us. We can dare to believe that Jesus is in the boat, even if we can’t see where or what he is doing.
Remember, he is in the boat. This means that despite how furious the storm may seem, we have all we need to move through it.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Torsten Dederichs
