Jesus can calm the storms in your life.

Luke 8:22-25

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to believe good for another than it is for yourself? You can speak earnestly and sometimes eloquently about God’s great love for your friend; about how God’s plan for her life is good; about how God will provide for and protect her in every situation. But it’s a little bit harder to trust these precious truths when you’re the one who doubts your value; the one who fears the future; the one whose life is threatened.

Well, you are not alone. The disciples were (literally) in the same boat.

They had witnessed Jesus casting out demons from the man in the synagogue; they were present when Jesus forgave and healed the paralyzed man whose friends had lowered him through the roof; they were walking along with him when they entered Nain and Jesus brought back from the dead the widow’s son. They were not unacquainted with Jesus’ power over life and death. But they had never been the ones who were in need of one of his miraculous deeds. Up to their ears in water, fear pushed out faith and trust. “Master, we are perishing!” You can hear the panic in their voices.

Jesus responds with action, rebuking the wind and the waves and then an appropriate question, “Where is your faith?” Remember when I cured the leper, when just my word brought the centurion’s slave back from the edge of death, when the anonymous woman touched my robe and her bleeding stopped? You know I have power. Practice trusting what you know is true, this is the essence of faith.

“Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps. Paul Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” – Frederick Buechner

When fear arises, remember God’s power to overcome the raging storm, even in your life.