"ANOTHER DAY AT SEA"
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they awoke him and said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38)
After a day of preaching to an enormous crowd, Jesus and his disciples boarded a boat when evening came. They were headed toward the opposite side of the sea when a fierce storm arose, causing waves to break over the sides of the vessel, alarming even the experienced fisherman on board.
The disciples believed that Jesus was sleeping through the crisis and that could well be true, exhausted as he must have been after a long day. It's possible too that he had just stretched out on the cushion for a moment of quiet as he placed in the Father’s hands the people he’d ministered to that day. In either case, he surely wasn’t oblivious to such a fierce and threatening storm, but neither was he alarmed.
Clearly, Jesus could have ordered the sea’s first angry wave to be calm. He could have commanded the first gust of wind to be still. The fact that he did not suggests that in some of life’s storms, God waits until the tempest is at its full fierceness before intervening. Sometimes I wish His method were otherwise, don't you? Intense storms can be frightening. But without them, spiritual lessons go unlearned, and the reassuring sense of our Creator’s tender nearness is sadly lost.
This came at the best time. Our grandson is struggling and we have ran out of ways to help him. Please keep up the good work and God bless you.
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Loretta, not having grandchildren myself, I can't fully appreciate what you are going through with your grandson. I do know, though, that fierce storms can be frightening. I am so grateful that this meditation came at a good time for you. Linda
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