We had a crazy windstorm last week with almost 24 hours of intense wind gusts and the resulting damages—trees falling, fences knocked down, various lawn chairs and trampolines blown away. I’ve never been through a hurricane on the coast, and I realized what people talk about with the sheer noise wind can create. My husband had to wear earplugs to sleep, and the howling and crashing went on all night.
At some point during the night, I woke up and listened to the wind for a bit while lying in bed. It dawned on me that this was what the disciples felt when they were out in the boat with Jesus, except they were on a boat tossed by the waves rather than a warm bed in a safe house. I imagined the fear and panic that would govern in a situation like that. They were pretty sure they were going to die out there in that storm.
Jesus had been teaching about faith prior to this story told in Mark 4. When the storm comes up, he is SLEEPING. This makes no sense to us when we don’t realize that God is enough in a storm, but Jesus knew His Father was watching out for Him and didn’t need to worry or stress about anything.
Have you ever felt the fierce storm blowing around you, pushing you into fear and panic?
The name for God in Hebrew is YHWH, which when pronounced sounds like breathing. I love this concept—breathe in “yah” and out “weh” and we call out to God every time we breathe. Sometimes it’s helpful to stop and breathe deeply, acknowledging YHWH is with you. This acknowledgment can do more to calm the storm within you than many other exercises.
I actually love that Jesus was completely unfazed by the storm. He knew He held the power to make it stop, but He also knew that He was teaching His disciples faith by allowing it and being with them in it. The disciples were amazed at His speaking to the waves and the wind, but He had been telling them all day about how they could also do this in faith. They saw something they had never seen that day, which was saying something after all they had seen him do. Instead, Jesus was calling them to believe Him in a way they hadn’t yet. So often my storms are similar. I am called to believe Jesus is working in all sorts of places that I’ve never experienced, and sometimes are quite scary. But He holds my hand and never leaves. You are never in the storm alone.
This isn’t a logical progression by the way. You don’t argue with your brain about how the storm isn’t really that bad, because sometimes it is! Instead, you refocus on the God of the storm who holds the power to calm it, and to get you through it. Sometimes He calms it, and other times He calls you to walk on the waves with Him (Matthew 14) like He did Peter.
Jesus is alive, and He has chosen to live in you. He is present in every storm in which you find yourself. He is able to calm the waves, and to encourage you to have faith in the God of the storm. He empowers us to move from fear to faith, from anxiety to rest, from panic to peace.
Fully awake, he rebuked the storm and shouted to the sea, "Hush! Calm down!" All at once the wind stopped howling and the water became perfectly calm. Mark 4:39b