Sometimes Jesus Wants You in the Storm.
That’s important to remember. When the waves of life are crashing all around you and it feels like your ship can stand no more … you may be exactly where He wants you to be.
Mark 6:45-56 (NIV)
Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed,
Sometimes Jesus Wants You in the Storm.
Whoa! Wait . . . what?
Sometime Jesus Wants you in the storm!
Now hear me on this. Jesus did not CAUSE the storm to come upon them, but He did send them on out into it. That’s important
It was Jesus’ idea. Jesus sent them into this situation.
Over and over when you find yourself struggling people will say, “God will not give you more than you can bear.”
I submit to you that not only WILL God give you more than you can bear, many times He does so that His glory may be revealed.
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
And sometimes we are straining against the oars and fighting against the wind because Jesus is on His way.
Here the disciples are out in the middle of the lake and they are straining against the oars. Rowing with all their might but going nowhere. Because the wind is against them.
The turmoil of the sea, to many of those in Jesus’ day, was equated with chaos and unpredictability. It was a tempest that couldn’t be tamed and was routinely used in the literature of the time to show the chaos and unpredictability of life.
It was also seen as the domain of the spirit world. The pagan gods and demons of the world around them lived in the sea and in the storm.
So as the disciples are stranded in a boat on a raging sea in the middle of a howling storm that’s what they are expecting. That’s what they are looking for.. They are looking for spirits. For demons, spirits and pagan gods. They are stuck in the midst of the storm and they are straining against the oars. They are helpless and hopeless because they feel overwhelmed by the spirts of this world!
We know what that feels like don’t we? Spinning our wheels? Fighting and scraping to get nowhere?
We know what that’s like in our personal lives and we know what that’s like in church. Churches everywhere complain of the same malady. They feel like they’re rowing against the wind. Fighting and straining but getting nowhere. All around them is chaos and no matter what they do they can’t seem to get ahead. They can’t seem to make any headway. We all find ourselves eventually in the same situation. You hit a place where you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, straining against the wind, fighting but not really getting anywhere. Lost and alone in a storm that is out of control. Overwhelmed by the chaos and all you can see around you is darkness and evil.
The first thing you need to remember is that Jesus wants you in that storm.
JESUS SEES YOU. AND YOU SEE HIM MORE PERFECTLY IN THE STORM!
So if you are wrestling with a storm this week, if you’re straining against the oars, if all around you is chaos and confusion; take comfort in the fact that you may be precisely where Jesus wants you.
Call to Him. Cry out to Him. Because He is ready to show up in a powerful way!
Pursuing God 