What stirs fear within you? Is it difficult conversations? dark alleys? unlit mountain passes? spiders? bees? failure? birds? What about a malevolent storm?
He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40 ESV)
At one point or another all the things I mentioned instilled fear in me. The reason being that I suffered the consequences of meeting those situations and left me with memories of hurt, loss, or very itchy and uncomfortable (as in the case of spiders, bees and birds). Lets face it, there are things that cause the fear within you to overwhelm every visible marker of faith you’ve inhibited in your life.
The 12 disciples are with Jesus in the middle of the night, crossing the sea in a boat when a tempest storm disrupts travel plans. All these experienced fishermen and tough guys (some of the disciples were con artists, I mean tax collectors) and they were afraid of strong winds, and a few waves. They were about to lose their lunch and wet their pants a little. Meanwhile, Jesus is sleeping as the boat he’s in is violently rocking. The disciples wake Jesus up and responds, “why are you so afraid?” as if the violent storm was normal and they should’ve treated it as unremarkable.
That’s what faith in Jesus is. It’s the expectation that there is nothing so remarkable in a storm that would ever make us doubt who’s in the boat with us. God is with us in the storm (figuratively and literally). The storm is the norm when we’re going from point A to point B. The disciples freaked out over a storm out of their control, but they were travelling with Jesus; and He is in control. If the disciples behaved like they believed, there should never be any looming fear.
So I ask you, “Why are you so afraid?”
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