It's Been That Kind of Week

They say preachers preach what they need to hear. This was my devotional message in this week's Friday Reminders (our weekly email newsletter):

Luke 8:22-25 – One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him, and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”

I don’t know about you, but there are times in my life when I wish Jesus would show up, and rebuke all the things that have been knocking me around and throwing me off balance and making me afraid, and just bring a great calm to my life. There are times when I want to cry out to him, “Wake up and do something about this craziness that is raging around me!”
It is easy to relate to the disciples in this story. What’s interesting is examining Jesus’ reaction to their panic. The first thing he does is calm the storm. They wouldn’t have been in much of a state to listen to any teaching as long as they were so frightened, after all. But then he asks them a question. It’s a question that, like so many Jesus asks, never gets answered.
“Where is your faith?” What does it mean that Jesus asked them this question? Their fear seems pretty justifiable, under the circumstances. And couldn’t they have argued that it was their faith in him that made them think he could do something to help? It seems to me that Jesus’ overall message to the disciples was “Yes, I can and will calm this storm for you, but you need to have faith that you would be okay even if I didn’t.”
In our age, when God isn’t directly intervening to change circumstances to suit us very often, it is even more important to hold onto the second part of this message. “I am with you in the midst of the storm. I am holding things together in ways you can’t even imagine, even while it seems like things are blowing apart. You will be okay even when I don’t swoop in to make everything all better.”
Sometimes God has a different definition of “okay” than we do. But the wind never blows forever. And God will be there when it stops, just like he’s there during the storm.

Collect for the Week: Holy God, Creator of the Universe, who made the wind and the water, the earth and the sky and all life, give us strong hearts that our faith might carry us through all trials and enable us to be beacons of hope in a stormy world. Through Jesus Christ our Savior and the Holy Spirit who sustains us, Amen.