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!"
The sleeping God?
I don’t like it when God asks me to do something and then He disappears for a while. God asks you to do something a little risky, you say “Yes as long as you go with me” and God disappears. I bet the disciples felt that way. “Hey guys, let’s go to the other side of the lake.” It really seemed risky to the disciples who had grown up fishing this lake. They could smell a storm brewing but they stepped out in faith and pushed off. In the middle of the lake when all hell breaks loose, where is Jesus? Sleeping!
When the disciples wake Jesus up they are the ones who get rebuked. Where is your faith? At this point I want to yell at Jesus, “Hey man, we got in the boat and started out when we told you it was going to be risky, but we still obeyed and did what you asked, you could at least help out here.”
Apparently there is a difference between faith and obedience. Obedience is doing what God asks us to do, faith is believing it was a good thing to do when the chips are down. I don’t believe God sleeps, Scripture says otherwise, but God sure is silent sometimes when I want him to say something. It seems like he is sleeping. In the middle of a storm I want to know God is there by my side working with me.
Perhaps my perspective is all wrong. Perhaps I need to take a lesson from Jesus as well and sleep a little more and worry a little less. Humanity is at its best when it sleeps. For me, this is a real lesson in faith. Obedience, that is easier. I am a doer. Faith, takes sleeping.
Jesus teach me to sleep. Teach me to rest in God’s provision despite the storms that threaten to swamp my life. Help me to walk in faith not just obedience. -Dan Jones
Just As He WasAnd just how was Jesus when he suggested they sail away from people who wanted him?
He’d sat in a boat, anchored and swaying a little ways off shore in the lapping Galilean water. Sitting, perhaps sometimes standing, he taught people over several hours. But that’s only half the “how.” The head on a pillow and the continued sleeping as a storm churned the sea tell the rest of the story. Here was an exhausted man.
I know a thing or two about exhaustion. And I know about others not understanding how I could be exhausted. After all he just talked for a few hours. How exhausting can that be? (Perhaps some in the crowd thought, “He’s tired!? We’re the ones who have been listening to him!)
I cannot explain how a man in REM sleep in the middle of a storm could have been God with skin on; an eternal person, creator and sustainer of all that is – exhausted in a boat. Go figure. He was fully human, that’s for sure. I’m glad.
In the span of an hour Jesus shows his divine authority over the wind and seas he had created eons before and his inability to control the onset of physical exhaustion. All he could do was submit to a body that screamed for sleep. In order to be any good to any one, Jesus had to listen to his body and submit to its limitations. I’m glad he did.
The old church song is right, “No one understands like Jesus.” When I’ve reached my limits of endurance, he doesn’t guilt trip me for walking away from responsibilities, ridicule me for petering out so soon, or compare me to others whose energy levels carry them longer. Instead, putting his arm on my shoulder, he whispers, “I understand you.”
God of thunder above and water below, my appreciation for your willingness to submit yourself to a mortal body has grown today. Your understanding of my limits is one of the many qualities about you that draw out my complete trust in you. I love you. I’m fully yours. -Mike Leamon
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