Praying for Our Family of Faith
• Doctors, nurses, leaders, the most vulnerable in our community
• David Corley – recovering from gallbladder surgery yesterday.
• Rosa Margaret Thompson – preparing for outpatient surgery later this week.
• Linda Dickens – recovering at home from a mild stroke last Friday, getting better.
• Linda Wessel – recovering at home from a recent neck surgery.
• Peggy Staggs – recently broke her foot.
• Bryson Davis – son of Beverly Burns, recovering from a four wheeler accident at home.
• Jim & Elaine Sumeral – homebound, Jim is trying to find a balance of medication.
• Mike Little – dealing with chemo treatment for pancreatic cancer.
• Alison Shearer – continuing to recover from cancer surgery, doing well.
• Caroline Madden – homebound, dealing with several challenges.
• Jane Ivey – at home, hopes to try new treatments soon.
• Corrie Grether – ongoing cancer treatments.
Reflecting Together
Read Mark 4: 35-41
In today’s passage, the disciples find themselves in a life-threatening situation. They are stuck in the middle of the Sea of Galilee on a boat while a massive storm tosses them around, threatening their very lives. Naturally, they are terrified. But as the storm rages on, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. The sight of the sleeping Jesus creates in the disciples’ hearts the worst storm of all-the theological storm of wrongly assuming that Jesus doesn’t care.
There is a dynamic that exists between faith and fear-when one increases, the other decreases. In a time of fear and uncertainty, the disciples forgot all they had already learned about Jesus, and their fear suddenly was bigger than their faith. It’s easy to forget what God did yesterday when we are in a storm today.
The cry of the disciples woke Jesus, and the passage says that He immediately calmed the wind and the waves. In that moment of utter silence, the disciples experienced Jesus as they never had before, and now they were even more afraid. This miracle had not removed their fear; instead it had redirected their fear. As the disciples began to fear Jesus, all of their other fears were gone. They had begun to experience an awe of God, which is a helpful and healthy fear.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 9:10
Storms still come in our lives. They pop up unexpectedly in our health, our careers, our finances, our families, and our marriages. Storms come in the form of a pandemic that threatens our very lives and, at the very least, throws our normal routines into utter chaos.
There are no storms that come into our lives that do not first pass through His sovereign and loving fingers. If we know His character, we will know that He does nothing that is not for our good and His glory (See Romans 8:28). Storms do not come because God is mad at us. They come because He loves us and wants us to experience Him in a way that we never have before.
And when He has silenced the storm, He will still ask us: “Why were you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Consider this:
• Think about the “storms” that have come and gone in your life. During these times, what did God reveal to you about Himself that helped strengthen your faith?
• How can these things continue to strengthen you during the storms that may come in the future?