Sunday, January 11, 2014

Gen 24:52-26:16
Mat 8:18-34
Psalm 10:1-15
Prov 3:7-8

Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown." (Mat 8:19-25)

Jesus had just gathered some disciples and he had told them that things would not be easy for them. He had no permanent home to share with them. They would have to walk away from family and leave difficult matters to others. But follow him they did. Into a boat. And almost immediately, they ran into difficulty.

Out of nowhere, a terrifying storm rose up. Huge waves tossed the boat around and thoroughly frightened the disciples. Where was Jesus? Sleeping. What did the disciples do? They ran to him. Hmmmm. Do you think this tells us something important? If Jesus was sleeping, then he wasn't worried about the storm. He must have been in a deep sleep for the rocking of the boat and the crashing of the waves hadn't awakened him. From the text it would seem that the disciples wasted no time trying to keep the boat on course. They went to Jesus. First. Before they did anything else. And asked for his help. And with a word, Jesus calmed the wind and the waves. I'm not sure I understand why he rebuked the men for having little faith. Maybe with deeper faith, they would have understood that it would be safe to ride out the storm knowing that Jesus was with them.

Either way, we can trust Jesus to help us. To bring us through our trials. Sometimes he may quickly 'rebuke our storm'. And other times we may have to hang on to him with all that we have and wait for the storm to pass. So the next time I find myself in deep water, I need to remember to cry out to the Lord and he will never let me down.



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