Completely Calm
My pastor preached a sermon a while back on Matthew 8. On this particular day, the disciples loaded up into their boat following Jesus’ instruction, and headed across the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly, without warning, a “furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat.” (vs. 24) Instead of sitting back and trusting Jesus, believing that He was in control and able to do the impossible, the disciples panicked and frantically woke Jesus up.
(Clearly Jesus is a very hard sleeper as He was able to sleep through rain pouring down on Him and wind rushing over Him in the boat!)
Jesus looked at them and said “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (vs. 26) He had to be asking Himself HOW ON EARTH these same men that had watched him heal people from deathly illnesses, and had already sat through HOURS of His teaching and talking about what was to come, were panicked! The man just wanted to rest before He had to resume His teaching on the other side of the lake and they couldn’t hold it together long enough for him to take a quick power nap?!
He got up, (in my mind He rolled His eyes at his disciples) and told the wind and the waves to hush…and they instantly calmed down. The Bible even says, “It was COMPLETELY calm.” (vs. 26) That doesn’t mean the storm slowly went away and the clouds pushed out of the area. It means that suddenly it went from what the disciples thought was a tragic, dangerous, life-threatening storm, to a beautiful sunny day. Instantly.
As you can imagine they were shocked and amazed, because they couldn’t believe what they had just experienced. They had never seen him do anything like that before…He not only held the power to heal, but even the wind and rain obeyed Him!
The disciples would have never known all that Jesus was capable of if they would not have followed Him completely, and first gotten into the boat.
In life, storms come. We weren’t sure what was going to happen with our twin babies, but we would have never known all that Jesus was capable of if we wouldn’t have ‘gotten in the boat’ and remained with Him through it all. Thankfully, He doesn’t make us ride out the storms on our own but rather, promises to ride them out WITH us. If we pursue His presence throughout the storms we don’t need to fear, because holds the power to calm the storm immediately and completely.
Once we discovered how serious the situation was for Will and Drew, my doctor’s told us to pray that the babies would make it to 30 weeks. After that, the hope would be that their chances of survival in the NICU would be far better, and that I would eventually get to bring them both home with me. Well….30 weeks came….and went. The doctors were amazed at how well the babies were doing, and marveled at each appointment when they were able to send me home. We finally relaxed and even planned for Steve to travel to Student Camp. It seemed like the storm was finally dying down, and all of our worries along the way were for nothing!
But God had other plans to show His power…..as He often does.
I went in for my morning appointment the day Steve was leaving for camp, and to everyone’s surprise, Drew was the one struggling. They tried to do several things to get his heart rate up and after a while they determined they needed to deliver both babies immediately.
Immediately. Like, right this moment walk across the hall to the operating room because the babies were about to be born.
Remember how I told you I was a planner? This one was definitely NOT in my plan.
They really should consider keeping chocolate in my doctor’s office for moments like this. Or Ice cream. Or at least a brown paper bag to breathe into.
They got me all prepped and ready to go, and positioned a nurse to wait outside the O.R. door with a set of scrubs for Steve to put on the moment he showed up to the hospital. While I was being prepped I was warned that there was a good chance that the babies would need to be taken right away to receive more care, and that I may not get to hold or even see them up-close. The storm had just flared up again with a vengeance and I can remember wondering, was my Jesus asleep?
Steve arrived just in time, and the babies were born. That’s when our unbelievable, amazing news came.
“Oh my!” “Baby Will is not tiny at all…..in fact, he’s almost the same size as Drew. AND they’re both PERFECTLY FINE!”
They checked all of their vitals, handed both babies to me, and somehow, instead of sending one (or both!) of the babies to the NICU, the four of us were brought into my hospital recovery room. Not only did our storm seem to be over…it was completely calm. Shockingly Calm. ‘Jesus just calmed the storm’, “calm”.
It was joy like we had never felt before and we sat back “completely amazed” like those disciples in that boat. Instead of having to live the life of NICU parents, Steve was carrying BOTH BABIES AT ONCE (talk about throwing a new twin-dad into the deep end of the pool) to my hospital room. My babies were with me, both safe and healthy, and I didn’t need to worry anymore! Only God.
We learned a lot through that storm, but the biggest thing we learned that day is that SOMETIMES God chooses to calm the storm. Sometimes He decides to tell the wind and the waves to settle down and sometimes He teaches me a hard, strong lesson about how He is completely capable to do the seemingly impossible.
My job is to make sure I always get in the boat…it’s His job to keep me safe during the storms.
I have often rolled my eyes at those disciples, wondering how they were afraid of a silly storm when Jesus was laying just a few inches away from them in the boat. On this particular day, however, conviction hit me square between the eyes. When a storm enters my life, and Jesus is only a few inches away, I still find myself panicking just like those disciples. I’ve seen Him work in miraculous ways before, but something about the intensity of the storm causes me to stop staring at Jesus and start screaming for help. For whatever reason I try to fit Him and His abilities into my little box of understanding, but I know He is able to do Ephesians 3:20 kind of stuff!
Ephesians 3:20 – “Now to Him who is ABLE to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
So for whatever season you find yourself in, whatever storm you are trying to wade through, let me encourage you with this: He was and is completely capable to do “exceedingly, abundantly MORE than we could ever ask or imagine.”
Together, let’s stop begging Him to wake up and get us off the boat. Instead may we seek His presence on the boat, allowing Him to use the power only He has to calm the storm.
A personal note from Beth:
I would be remiss to finish my journey with you without telling you about why we named our son Andrew, or “Drew”. When you look throughout the bible, you see stories of where Andrew is constantly bringing people to meet His Jesus. Jesus had changed him and He couldn’t help but bring others to the life-changing message he had already experienced. That’s what we want our son to be like. We want him to focus his life on bringing people to Jesus, so may I start by making sure the story of his start to the world does just that…
Before we can seek God’s presence with us on the boat, we have to choose to get in the boat with Him in the first place. If you have never made a life-changing decision, asking Jesus to be Lord of your life and ‘jumping into the boat with Him’ but would like to do so, please send me a message. I’d love to walk through how to do that with you. I made that decision 25 years ago and am forever changed because of it. My life sure hasn’t been easy and the storms have most certainly still come, but knowing He’s with me to ride out these storms has made all the difference.