Courageous Faith in Adverse Storm

Jesus had just spent much of the day preaching and relating information about his kingdom of heaven, speaking from a boat on the sea of Galilee. It was the conclusion of all his discourse publicly to the crowd and privately to his disciples. The sun was about take its course on the other side of the earth, providing late afternoon light on the sea. And since this sea was surrounded by mountains and hills, it wouldn’t be long before the sun disappeared. And out of nowhere, Jesus (always being led by the Spirit) instructs his disciples “Let’s go to the other side”. They don’t ask any questions, and Jesus doesn’t say why or provide any specifics. He simply says let’s change locations. Let’s traverse and transition from the side of the lake we are currently on, to a different different side.

Application: This no doubt is a Spirit-led urge to make a shift or change. And there are times in our lives that the Spirit is urging or leading us to make a change from where we are. He has revealed himself in a number of circumstances that press us to transition. We’ve spent all day where we are. We’ve done a lot today. We’ve worked hard where we are, but now it’s time to transition. And what’s interesting is that GOD, Christ, and the Spirit don’t always give us all the specifics we want or feel we need to know about this change. And often we question back and forth whether or not what’s in my heart or what I’m feeling is from GOD. And that’s where it becomes very challenging. But if we are confident in the Spirit’s guidance, whatever change he’s leading me to is absolutely in the purpose of our Father. And whatever transition or change it is, there are some principles we need to prepare our minds for.

The disciples followed the direction of Christ and the Spirit and prepared to sail across the sea. But Mark draws our attention to some specifics that Matthew and Luke omit. Mark wants us to see that in this transition, traverse, or crossing over, the disciples are leaving the crowd and after leaving the crowd they took Jesus in their boat. And there were no breaks, change of clothes, or stops at the market. Mark wants us to see that this happened immediately.

Application: Whenever the Spirit is urging us to transition or change, there’s something that must be left behind. Because a transition is leaving from one thing, and going to something different. What we leave isn’t necessarily bad, negative, or evil, but often can be. But often times the Spirit is moving us to the next level. Even in this case, the crowd doesn’t represent evil. But they were in Capernaum where much had been done, and in a lot of cases because of the crowd, there was much Jesus intended to do that he couldn’t. In our love, grace, forgiveness, joy, faith, and so many more Christ like virtues, GOD wants to move us to the next level and the next level. But we must make a decision to leave certain things behind. In addition, we must maintain close fellowship with Jesus in our transition. Remember it was him that instructed this shift. The Spirit is the one who urged this change. Whatever change I’m experiencing isn’t successful or effective without Jesus!!! Then sometimes we procrastinate. Because sometimes our desires aren’t aligned with what the Spirit is urging us to do, we stay where we are longer than what GOD intends. But we must be spiritually tuned and see that some changes need to be immediate.

Now we aren’t told how far they are across the sea nor how long they’ve been sailing. But inferentially, we know they were a good distance from the coast of Capernaum. They were as the slogan says “smooth sailing”. But then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, with no warning or build up, a strong and violent wind rushed across the sea. It was such a great force that the waves started crashing against and into the boat. It was happening so fast that the boat started filling up with water. This wasn’t uncommon for this lake, because it is 700 ft below sea level and is surrounded by hills and mountains.

Application: The next principle regarding Spirit-led transitions that we need to understand is the potential for severe challenges. Of course, this is the aspect of change that we dislike. But whenever GOD is calling his children to move, transition, change, there’s adversity in the process. And the nature of many challenges are just like the storm these disciples were in. They are winds and waves of adversity that are sudden and violent. Then they are very forceful against us. They swell up fast and force against us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And then without warning or announcement everything just comes crashing in!! And lastly they start breaking all human capacity to handle it. Again, the Spirit wants us to move to the next level with our love, joy, hope, faith, service, and care. And some of the boats or vessels that are used are our marriages, friendships, schools, ministries, roles at work, etc. And all of sudden these adverse winds and waves come crashing on us, and the adverse effect prevents success and development. And when Mark says the vessel was filling up, that means the capacity it could hold was being exceeded. It is a point the boat can’t handle. It is the point we reach saying “I can’t handle this”. And we no longer want to deal with GOD’s process of moving to the next level.

Now all of this is happening, the boat is tossing and turning and water is crashing all over the boat and Jesus is calmly knocked out on a pillow in the back of the boat. He must’ve been in a very deep sleep! Now the boat was at least occupied by 4 experienced sailors: Peter, his brother Andrew, James, and his brother John. No doubt they were taking measures to get water out of the boat and do what they were skilled to do in a storm, but none of it was working. Finally the disciples start yelling out to Jesus. “Master, Master!” “Lord!” “Teacher, Teacher!” “Wake up!!!” They cried out in distress, asking if it was important to him that they are about to die.

Application: When we are in the midst of our adversity, we often respond the same way they did. GOD do you even care? Particularly that we are about to die. We throw our human effort toward the challenges, not seeing that the ultimate element of resistance isn’t human. And when it feels like the adversity is about to break us, we feel like GOD doesn’t even care. After all, I was following the Spirit’s guidance in the first place!! Can you hear the Israelites charge against Moses, “You brought us out here to die… We could’ve just stayed in Egypt.” To perish is directly linked with, or in some cases defined as, losing. The struggle with all adversity is the thought/belief of losing something valuable to us in the process!! - financial stability, my mind, freedom, control, desires, possessions, or even my life - If that weren’t the case, there would be no reality of danger. But because these things are so valuable to us, adversity presents us with a risk. There’s no risk without danger. But Spirit-led transition involves risk!!!

So how does Jesus respond? He in his power and mercy stood up and starts speaking to the wind and the sea!! Stop all your noise and stay that way. As a result the wind and the sea became perfectly calm, to the point of being negligible.

Application: We need to be assured that Jesus has power over our adversity. Watch this, not just the effect but also the source! The wind was the unseen force on the seen water! From scripture, he does only what is ascribed to the GOD of Heaven (, ). Thus demonstrating he is one with divinity.

Jesus’ next response is to his disciples. He questions why they lack courage to the point they panicked and loss all hope of life. How is it that up to this present time you don’t possess a full trust in my Father or in me. They had him in the boat, but even that wasn’t enough. The idea is that even if Jesus wasn’t in the boat, they should have faith and assurance of his and his Father’s presence. And even if they died, they should die courageously and fully trusting in the Father.

Application: When we panic and lose hope, and become frightened because of the waves of our adversity, it is a result of a lack of faith and trust in GOD. What’s needed in those times is a solid faith that whatever happens, I’m in the hands of GOD. Even if I die, I will do it in faith.

They develop a fear that’s different than their lack of courage, this one is being terrified of Jesus because he just spoke to the wind and sea and it obeyed him. They still didn’t quite understand who he was. But this is not a fear that results in despair and prolonged fright, but leads to honor, worship, and faith. - That’s where we need to be. When we know he has that type of power, we need to fear and trust him above all winds and waves of adversity. - What’s the next level? Why go to the other side? Why the change? What they didn’t know is that there was man in desperate need of help because he had 6000 demons tormenting his life!!! We must realize that part of the reason for transitioning or changing, reaching the next level of Christ-like virtues, is there’s greater need requiring them on the other side.