TEXT
Mark 4:35–41
KEY VERSE
“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.”
Mark 4:39
REFLECTION
Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us pass over unto the other side.” So they got into the boat. They were simply following Jesus. Then, on the journey He had told them to take, “there arose a great storm of wind.”
The waves began filling the boat, and Jesus was asleep in the hinder part, “on a pillow.”
Can you imagine being in that boat?
You are struggling to keep it afloat. Water is coming in. You do not know if you will make it. And Jesus is sleeping.
Eventually, they wake Him: “Master, carest thou not that we perish?”
That question is easy to understand. But look at what they were really saying: We are in danger, and You are doing nothing about it. If You cared, You would not be sleeping while we are perishing.
They had not stopped believing that Jesus was powerful. They had begun to doubt that He cared.
And that is often where trouble takes us. We can still believe that God is able, yet begin to wonder whether He is willing.
But there was something the disciples had forgotten. Jesus Himself had said, “Let us pass over unto the other side.”
Jesus got up and rebuked the wind.
And there was a great calm.
Then, as Mark says, “they feared exceedingly.”
Because they had just discovered that the Man sleeping in their boat was far greater than they had understood.
They had been terrified by the wind and the waves. Now they were terrified by what they had discovered about Jesus.
“What manner of man is this?”
The disciples entered the boat knowing Jesus as their Teacher. They came through the storm with a much bigger question about His identity.
And perhaps that is something we need to see. We often come to this passage thinking mainly about our storms. But Mark keeps turning our attention back to Jesus.
The disciples thought the crisis was the storm. The storm showed them that their greater need was to know Jesus more deeply.
Perhaps our greater crisis is not always the storm around us, but how little we know the One who is with us. If they had understood more of His power, His care, and His love, perhaps they would have rested with Him while the storm raged around them, knowing that the waves could threaten them but could never overcome Him.
We may not know why He allows every storm. We may not know when He will speak or what He will do. But we can know Him, and in knowing Him, we can have peace.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, when we cannot understand what You are doing, help us to know You more deeply and trust You more fully.
TODAY’S CHALLENGE
Read Mark 4:35–41 again. Notice how the disciples’ attention moves from the storm to Jesus.
Then ask yourself:
- When I cannot understand what Jesus is doing, what does that reveal about what I believe about Him?
KEY TAKEAWAY
The storm may reveal how little we know of Christ, but it cannot make Christ any less than He is.
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