It Is Well With My Soul
The disciples overcome many obstacles with Jesus’s help. Truly miraculous things happen. Their livelihood is saved when Jesus fills their nets with schools of fish. They overcome hunger when Jesus feeds thousands with two fish. They overcome exhaustion when Jesus institutes a rhythm of rest into their ministry.
The disciples witness Jesus overcome the impossible. A widow’s son is raised from the dead. A man with faithful friends overcomes paralysis. Peter’s mother-in-law is struck with a high fever long before the age of Tylenol, and Jesus heals her with a word.
On and on it goes, and every obstacle has resolution. At one point John the Baptist asks whether Jesus is the one the world has been expecting, and the reply is clear: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them!”
Every obstacle – hunger, fear, disease, death, exhaustion, demon-possession, and poverty – is overcome in Jesus, and the disciples are elated. They are full of good news and amazement, ministering from town to town.
But then a storm comes.
This storm on the Galilean sea is a special kind of obstacle. This obstacle sends the disciples into a panic. “Master, master!” they cry out. “We’re dying!” In Mark’s version of this story the disciples go further and call out to Jesus, “Don’t you care if we die?!”
Yet troubled seas would seem to pale in severity to fevers and death. Why would a mere storm riddle the disciples with fear when all of the other obstacles haven’t? For one, now it’s their lives on the line, not their mother-in-law’s. But also, these fishers of men understand the dangers of the sea. Storms that swept over the Sea of Galilee sent many a sailor into the depths of sheol, which adds another layer to the disciples’ dismay. In their worldview, a troubled sea very likely bore spiritual significance. Whether it was Hades, Poseidon, demons, or the dead, the sea – spiritually and experientially – was the place of unpredictable chaos.
So here it is: the obstacle that pushes their faith too far. The obstacle that ushers in helplessness and panic. This is the one that causes them to doubt the power of Jesus. This is the one that causes them to wake up Jesus (peacefully sleeping through the storm) and shout at him, “We’re going to die!” This is the trouble the disciples cannot see a way out of, the one where fear wins over faith.
We all have one.
God can cure me of cancer but can’t heal my marriage. It’s too far gone with too many layers of selfishness and pain.
Surely God can restore my child to faith but can’t get me a job. The market is too bad, and I’m not qualified.
God can stop the cornoavirus – we’ve prayed for that for weeks – but can’t get that visa for my mother. The system is too unjust.
We all have one. That stormy sea. That obstacle we’re convinced God cannot overcome. He can’t fix that. He can’t heal that. He doesn’t do that anymore. This is beyond what God can do.
What is it? Name your storm that stirs up a fear stronger than your faith.
Tell God in Christ you’re afraid this one is going to kill you.
Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they stopped, and there was a calm. He said to the disciples, “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?” (Luke 8:24-25)
This is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who created and reigns over everything in, above, and below the earth. This is the Lord who reigns over your life out of love for you.
And that’s hard to believe in this age where tornadoes kill loved ones mid-prayer, and the devout die too young from cancer as they shout, “Don’t you care that we’re dying?”
There aren’t answers for these horrors. Sometimes it simply feels cruel, and the raging seas threaten to sweep away our faith.
It’s in these times when it’s especially crucial to remember times our sovereign God broke through and overcame. For example, there was the time Paul ended up shipwrecked in a storm, but angels broke him out of prison. There was the time your coworker’s pregnancy went to term against all predictions. There was the time Hagar was seen and given a drink of water, and that time your mother-in-law’s medical bills were erased. There was the time Paul was strengthened by the joy of the Lord before he died in prison. There was the time Stephen was stoned to death and was miraculously overwhelmed with peace, and the time your son survived that car crash.
When and how God moves our obstacles may rarely make sense to us, but it’s significant that his reply to the disciples’ panic is not, “Let me explain to you my sovereignty.” Rather, he asks, “Where is your faith?” For a faith that vacillates when God humors our attempts at sovereignty is no faith at all. The faith God asks of us is a faith that lulls us to sleep in the storm. It’s a faith that knows that he is good, and a faith that believes that good wins. It’s a faith that brings peace like a settled sea, no matter what billows roll.
