Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?Sample

Jesus and Storms

Jesus ordered his disciples into a boat that was headed for a collision. The Bible says he constrained them to get into a ship. It was headed for troubled waters; it would be tossed about like a bobbing cork. The disciples would be thrust into a mini-Titanic experience, and Jesus knew it the whole time. 

The boat trip, the storm, the tossing waves and the winds were all a part of a trial the Father had planned. They were about to learn the greatest lesson they would ever learn. That lesson was how to recognize Jesus in the storm.

They recognized Jesus as the Christ, the very Son of God. But they had never learned to recognize Jesus in the storm. Tragically, those disciples who thought they really knew him best could not recognize him when the storm hit.

That’s the root of most of our trouble today. We trust Jesus for miracles and healing. We believe him for our salvation and the forgiveness of our sins. We look to him as the supplier of all our needs. We trust him to bring us into glory one day. But when a sudden storm falls upon us and it seems as if everything is falling apart, we find it difficult to see Jesus anywhere near. We can’t believe he allows storms to teach us how to trust. We are never quite sure he is nearby when things really get rough.

In their darkest hour, Jesus went to them. How difficult it must have been for Jesus to wait on the edge of that storm, loving them so much, feeling every pain they felt, wanting so much to keep them from getting hurt, yearning after them as a father for his children in trouble. Yet he knew they could never fully know him or trust him until the full fury of the storm was upon them. He would reveal himself only when they had reached the limit of their faith. The boat would never have gone down, but their fear would have drowned them more quickly than the waves beating on the ship. The only fear of drowning was that of drowning from despair, fear and anxiety. 

God saw that storm through different eyes. It was as much a test for these disciples as the wilderness was for Jesus. God took them away from the miracles, shut them up in a tiny, frail boat far from the upper room, then turned nature loose. God allowed them to be shaken but not sunken.

There was only one lesson to be learned. It was a simple lesson, not some deep, mystical, earth-shattering one. Jesus simply wanted to be trusted as their Lord in every storm of life. He simply wanted them to maintain their cheer and confidence even in the blackest hours of trial. That’s all.