December 02, 2020

Today’s reading
Mark 4:35-41

How can we study through Mark and not look at this passage of scripture? Jesus finishes teaching, He’s exhausted and says to His disciples “Let us pass over to the other side” those words are very important to the outcome of this story. Notice with me, as I am sure you already have that the disciples have not done anything wrong. They are right in the center of the will of God, they obeyed Jesus. Although they were in the center of God’s will they soon find themselves right in the middle of a dangerous, life threatening situation. Where was Jesus in all of this? He was asleep, and notice what it says, on a pillow. It wasn’t an accident Jesus fell asleep, this was planned sleeping time. He had a pillow for crying out loud. This was intentional and the disciples are none too happy about it. They were scared, afraid for their lives. They made the mistake of having little faith, but I think the biggest mistake they made was the assumption, and the accusation that Jesus did not care about them. Often when we go through storms it’s easy to fall into that way of thinking, that “Jesus doesn’t care about us” but we must remember this theological truth, there are no storms that come into our lives that aren’t first filtered through the hands of our Heavenly Father. You have to know the character of God, that everything He does is for our good and His glory. We know the outcome, Jesus awakes, He immediately speaks, and calms the storm. Then He turns His attention to the disciples and asks them a great question, “Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?” I’ve heard it said a lot that fear and faith cannot coincide. “The presence of fear is the absence of faith” We think that if anyone should have had faith, it would have been the disciples. Think of all the miracles they had seen Jesus do. But as we know, it’s easy to forget what Jesus did yesterday when you’re going through the storm today. Look at verse 41 with me again for a second. Just a few minutes before, the disciples feared a storm, but now they fear Jesus. When they witnessed His power, their fear shifted. They are fearing the very one they should have feared all along. Why does God allow us to go through storms and difficult circumstances? So that you will learn to fear Him above all else. If you fear Him above else you will trust Him above all else.

Frank Newsome