STAY CALM AND COME TO GOD IN THE MIDST OF THE STORMS OF OUR LIVES
Mark 4.35-40
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Today’s Gospel tells us about how Jesus calmed the storm. It began when Jesus took His disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, after teaching many people all day. Jesus was exhausted, so He was asleep when a violent typhoon hit them. It was no ordinary typhoon, as most of His disciples were fishermen and were used to storms. It was probably similar to a tsunami that would have washed them away.
In their haste to deal with their problems, they woke Jesus up. They were not asking Jesus for help, but protesting to Him about His indifference to the problem. Jesus should have been awake and with them to solve the problem, perhaps by helping them throw out the water that filled the boat. They said to Jesus, “Master, do you not care? We are going down”.
The disciples’ cries of fear and frustration are our cries to Jesus when situations in our lives shake our faith. However, various crises actually provide opportunities for us to grow in our trust in Jesus as we witness Him at work in our lives. Remember that Jesus is Immanuel, God who is always with us.
Life’s storms can come at any time to haunt our lives. They come in many forms. It may be a scary doctor’s diagnosis, the death of a loved one, a business going bankrupt, losing a job, failing an exam, and so on. Obviously, these storms occupy our attention and make us think that we are alone in facing them. We even come to the conclusion that God feels far away, indifferent to our situation and hopeless. We often feel that our lives are beyond God’s reach. However, as in today’s gospel, in such situations, it is best to keep coming to God.
The experience of the disciples in the middle of the Sea of Galilee shows us that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour. Jesus our Lord is with us at all times, even when the hurricanes and waves of life are raging fiercely and threatening our very existence. Through our pain, our weakness, our worries and despair, Jesus wants to teach us to rely on Him more totally. He is the sovereign God of all creation and the only God for our lives. Therefore, let us put our trust in Jesus, the God who is able to calm every storm of our lives and give peace to our souls.
PEACE BE WITH YOU