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Quiet, Be Still

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.\xa0 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, \u201cTeacher, don\u2019t you care if we drown?\u201d He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,\xa0\u201cQuiet! Be still!\u201d\xa0Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples,\xa0\u201cWhy are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?\u201d They were terrified and asked each other, \u201cWho is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!\u201d Mark 4:37-41 NIV

Back in May, twice in one week this text of Jesus calming the storm came up through various outlets for me. Then, two days after I published the blog post that this devotional stems from, Pastor Michael preached a sermon on the same passage (although he preached on Matthew's version). Perhaps this passage came up so much that week for me because I needed to reflect on the words and their meaning more deeply. But I feel like it's something that we can reflect on again today.

That week, I attended a meeting via Zoom where we practised Visio Divina (in Latin this means "divine seeing"). This is a practice where you pray and reflect using images or other types of media. The group leader read through the passage of scripture of Jesus calming the storm several times as the rest of the group reflected on a painting by Rembrandt of the disciples and Jesus in a small boat as water is pouring over the sides.

A few things struck me. One of them that I saw in the painting was that more than half of the disciples were centred around Jesus at the stern of the boat, but there was a lone disciple at the bow holding up the mast, straining under its weight as the ropes holding it snapped and billowed through the stormy air. I can be like that disciple. We all can. Trying to go it alone. Knowing Jesus is right there, but needing a hard spiritual shove some days to remember to turn to Him first. So, how do we stop striving to achieve more and give more, and feel like we need to do more? How do we stop looking to these things and many others for worth and value and reassurance? It can feel so easy to keep going back to the same patterns and thoughts and stuff that hasn't worked in the past. But when we turn to the truth of God's Word, it tells us that we don't need to strive or try so hard anymore because Christ died, rose from the dead and is alive. When we believe in the Son, our salvation is sure, we have been promised an abundant life and our debt, our sin, our striving and our need to measure up have been paid in full. Our striving is often still there though. But so is Jesus. Always present. Always beckoning.

The other thing that struck me were the words of the disciples. "don't you care if we drown?" The disciples were terrified. They were madly trying to keep their small fishing vessel afloat, while Jesus slept on a cushion. Seriously Jesus?? Don't you care about us? How could you sleep at a time like this? Hello!!?? Do you feel like Jesus has fallen asleep in the midst of the storm that you are in right now, peacefully resting on a cushion while the world is falling all around? Perhaps. Meaning that He's not scared of the storm and He knows that He has authority over it. Look at what Jesus says to His disciples after calmly standing up and rebuking the wind and waves. He says \u201cWhy are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?\u201d Ouch! That hurts. Jesus rebukes the fury of nature and then turns to the disciples who obviously have just not 'gotten it' yet and question how they could have spent so much time in the presence of the living God Himself in the bodily form of Jesus but still be so afraid and have so little faith.

In Mark's take on the event, Jesus doesn't just say little faith though...He says NO faith. The disciples followed Jesus in person, observed him, listened to him and learned from him, yet were still afraid. Do we take time out of our busy, often stressful days to rest in the presence of God? To observe His stories, listen to the words He speaks in scripture and learn from Him, then put into action what we have seen, heard and learned?

The disciples were terrified and asked each other, \u201cWho is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!\u201d I wonder what this pandemic would look like for us if we turned our fear into faith. If we took our worries and used them to propel us towards love for others? What would it look like if we focused our mind on the scriptures and on who God is in His very nature instead of the lack and the storm in our lives? How would our lives be changed? How could we change a life around us? This scripture shows us that Christ has authority over all things. God has us covered. He sees us and He knows our needs, He knows our hearts and He knows our minds. He wants to renew our minds into the likeness of Christ. Even amidst the fear and anxiety of our present storm Jesus calls out "Quiet! Be still!" He calls out to us to quiet our mind and then fill it with Scripture, the truth of His Word. He calls out to us to be still with Him, rest in Him, and listen to His still small voice inside of us. The voice that not only calls out, as Jesus did to the wind and waves that day....but the voice that also whispers to our deepest place "Quiet. Be still."