The Storm
What would it take to calm the storms in our lives?
Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” - Matthew 8:18-27
What advice do we hear when a storm is predicted?
Stay inside? Evacuate? Do whatever it takes to avoid the fury?
For most of us, there is little we can do against the storm. We just have to ride it out.
The strategy is one of avoidance, since we have no power over Mother Nature, right?
But when the storm is something else, something within or something that disturbs our norm, there may be a better strategy.
Jesus stood up to the storm and willed it to be calm.
Maybe he was showing us another way to approach the turbulence in our lives. What sort of man does this? they asked.
This is the sort we can be. We can hide from our battles and fears, or we can face up to them and will ourselves to deal with the storm.
After a year and a half of sheltering from the storm of the pandemic, we are all facing the challenge.
Do we stay asleep, or do we wake up and stand down the fear?
It is a personal decision. No one can tell us what to do.
At some point, we will have to make the decision for ourselves.
More to come...