Mark 4: 37-41

³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ 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?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

In the bible, the phase, “do not be afraid” appears 365 times, one for each day of the year. This is evidence of God’s love for us and his desire for us to release our fears, anxieties and concerns to Him in trade for peace, stillness and calm. As I first began to learn how to do this, it would often be minute by minute as my mind would wander back to things I feared or anxieties about what “could happen”. It takes effort to be still and silent and entrust every fear to God’s providence.

If we imagine the beginning, in the Garden and God’s desire for mankind to walk with Him, that desire has never changed. If we let Him, God will go before us, stand beside us, and raise us up on our darkest days, we simply have to ask. Sometimes, as in the scripture above, it is a panicked, demanding ask, we want God to react to our demands in the way we expect, but His ways are not our ways.

Isiah 55: 8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We cannot comprehend the vast nature of God, but we can trust Him that He is faithful and will always calm the storm in His timing if we ask.

Peace and Love,

Angela K