Faith & Circumstance

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”  Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”  Mark 4:35-41

Our tendency is to focus on the here and now; the immediate.  We are mostly consumed with the present reality.  And that's not a bad thing.  It's part of being human.  The disciples were ordinary men like us.  Here they are, in the middle of a legitimate storm.  I don't normally use the word "squall" in my vocabulary, so here's the definition:

A sudden, sharp increase in wind speed which is usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow.

This storm was no joke.  The fact that it was sudden would certainly freak me out.  I hate pretty much anything that is sudden or unexpected.  Their reaction is natural: "don't you care?"  We judge by what we see, and what they saw was Jesus sleeping with his head on a bag of sand in the back of the boat.  

It's what they didn't see that has real power: Jesus has power over a life and death circumstance.  "Even the wind and waves obey", they responded. They had been with Jesus all day, watching him heal on the shore of the lake.  Still they weren't quite sure of who he was.  Right up until his death in fact.  But we're like them in a lot of ways: wanting to know when, where, how, etc.

One thing that comes from this not so small episode on the lake: 

Don't judge the care and compassion of God by your present reality.  God's seeming absence or lack of concern is not determined by what we see in front of us.  In reality, His care for us often comes unbeknownst to us.  His work goes on while we sleep (Ps. 17:3).

God is always at work, whether you see it or not.