It is impossible to count the massive number of Christian messages built around the “CALM SEAS OF CHRIST” metaphor. And for good reason. It is a powerhouse life preserver for believers swimming against the current of life and battling the tide’s powerful undertow.
Consider your trips across life’s calm, glass-like waters that were hijacked by a sudden storm. A storm joined by its thunder and lightning accomplices tickling our ears and then busting our eardrums. A storm that obscured the lighthouse’s beam and the harbor’s safety promise.
That same feeling was with the disciples in their storm-ravaged boat before Jesus saved them by calming the menacing seas.
But this morning my attention turned to this question: Why were the disciples so quick to move past the stilled storm and wonder: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41)
That part of the story engulfs my soul with the magnificence of a Jesus who not only performed the miracle of calming an angry sea; but sat in their boat as God himself in the flesh.
God is a DEPENDABLE CAPTAIN who is sitting in our boat. Not just to still the storms that buffet our bow, but to impart wisdom throughout the entire journey–rain or shine, day-after-day.
Yes, it’s easier to have faith on the shore’s soil than it is when we are being tossed from stem to stern.
Yes, it’s easier to have faith on a harbor cruise than it is when we are shipwrecked on an abandoned beach.
Yes, it’s easier to have faith in dry-dock than it is when waves crash into our boat’s hull.
But that is why we must remember that storms are not encounters with pain. Storms are introductions to God.
I ask God to encourage me to summon him to the deck of my boat and rely on his power to be a CAPTAIN that teaches me in the way “I you should go.”
When was the last time you trusted the CAPTAIN of your ship to calm a stormy sea and assure you of his presence for the entire journey, RAIN or SHINE?
“And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?'” Mark 4:41
