I have endured many storms in life, riding the waves in isolation. I lived as if there were an answer for everything, and if I googled hard enough, I’d find it. If I ruminated long enough, I would discover it. If I checked one more time, I would be safe. I believed if I pounded the waves hard enough, the raging, unknown sea would relent, and my peace would be restored. Until one day, the storm was simply too big.
My illusion of control came crashing down when I was faced with my daughter’s medical diagnosis. For privacy, I will not disclose her illness, but I don’t have to expound to readers who are facing their own storms. You know this place well. The diagnosis, the financial difficulties, the marriage collapse, the relational estrangement. Silently, we suffer alone. As the ship sinks, we thrash about, screaming at the top of our lungs to a God we aren’t sure will save us. After all, we have known neighbors, friends, and family members whose prayers went unanswered. They weren’t saved.
I recently watched the film The End of Oak Street where a family’s neighborhood was abruptly removed from their time and space and placed in the middle of a prehistoric wilderness. Sitting on the floor of their living room and talking about their unknown future, the father remained hopelessly and annoyingly optimistic. He reassured his family, “God’s not gonna let us die here.” His daughter responded in frustration, “What about the people being eaten outside?”
I won’t spoil the movie for you, but even before the dinosaur fiasco, the father was struggling with a crisis he kept secret from his family and was desperately trying to hold their lives together … alone. His hopeless optimism was an overflow of that reality. He wasn’t clinging to true peace; he was a man desperately grasping for control and safety.
I wasn’t in the middle of a dinosaur-infested neighborhood, but I deeply resonated with this father. If I checked the symptoms one more time, googled the outcomes, prayed hard enough or thought long enough, I could somehow still the sea. Yet another part of me resonated with the daughter in the movie, observing the storm clearly and asking the painful question, “What will happen if this prayer isn’t answered?”
What if my daughter isn’t cured?
The frantic pecking of keys reassured me more than the silence during my prayers.
Where was my Savior?
In the Bible, a group of men asked a similar question in the middle of their stormy crisis, and I found comfort in where they found him … asleep.
I can hear critics call out, “Our Savior doesn’t sleep!” “He is alert, active, and deeply involved in the lives of his people.”
And yet there it is in scripture. In the middle of the disciples’ stormy crisis, Jesus slept. How can a loving God sleep in the middle of the storms of life that threaten to overtake us? Is he indifferent to our suffering?
The Gospel of Mark records this storm as being so violent that waves crashed over the boat, filling it with water. The disciples weren’t inexperienced tourists. They were seasoned fishermen. They really thought they were going to die.
Waves crashed violently over their boat, filling it with water. Drenched and panicked, and having surpassed their high threshold for danger, they finally cried out to Jesus, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”
The boat’s violent thrashing didn’t wake Jesus. Being completely drenched in water didn’t stir him from his slumber. The voice of his sheep crying, however, did. Immediately and powerfully, he tamed the beastly storm, and he looked at his wide-eyed disciples and asked: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Most reflections on this story center around the power and majesty of Christ, quieting the elements of this world. Even the disciples stood in amazement at the miracle. Maybe it is the people pleaser in me who thinks far too much about what I could do better, but I found myself wondering, “What did Jesus want them to see?”
I rewind the scene in my mind and try to replace the disciples’ steps with more faith. I imagine the waves crashing violently over the boat; they fear for their lives, and instead of crying out to Jesus to save their lives, they rush to his side. They white-knuckle cling to the Son of God. In their fear, they hold on to him for dear life. In their anxiety, they fling themselves onto the sleeping Savior, because his rest communicates something to them.
It communicates Jesus’ absolute trust and safety in God the Father. I suggest his rest communicates just as much power and order as stilling the raging sea. So, when the waves of suffering threaten my life, I picture myself climbing into the arms of my sleeping Savior. The waves still rage, but I am tucked into the arms of a Savior who isn’t threatened by the storm. I ride the waves with peace that even if the waves overpower the boat, they will not overpower my Savior.
When I feel the urge to beat the waves with my fist, I rest in his arms instead. It may not calm the storm of my outward circumstances, but it powerfully tames the wind and sea internally.
