Monthly Archives: March 2020

Jesus is Asleep

Life in Christ, Perils of Shepherds, Personal

Several of them had been out on this water since they were boys. As men they had earned their livelihood navigating these waters, through calm & storm. Sure, Matt was not great with boats as he’s always had an office job, but that was ok.
This time was bad. This was a tough situation. There were a bunch of them all in this fishing boat and the storm was intense. Even with their experience, they were losing control of the situation and they realized they were facing a life or death moment.

And Jesus was asleep.

He’d been really busy lately and had just come off a major time of teaching. Physically exhausted, he was actually sleeping through the calamity. He was their leader, and although their full understanding of what it meant would take more time, they knew He was of God. So they woke him up, rather upset. “Don’t you care what is happening to us!?!?”

Fear does that to us. Jesus seemed to not care. The reality actually was that he just wasn’t afraid. He could sleep because he was at peace. He knew perfect security in the hands of God. They should have known that too, but they were overwhelmed with the knowledge of their circumstances rather than their knowledge of Him.

So he calmed the storm.

He didn’t calm it because the storm was their problem. He calmed it to show that HE was the answer to their security; that he had greater power than the storm that they thought was a threat.

Peter had his own lesson on this as his very accurate awareness of a dangerous situation out on the water overwhelmed his awareness of his Savior. He sunk into the water after a few steps. Jesus pulls him out reminding him to trust him, not the situation.

I have asthma and am not as young as I used to be. I fear dying less than I fear leaving my family without a father, but the fear is real.

And Jesus is asleep.

I have to remember this so I can sleep too. Jesus is not asleep as in displaying a callous disregard for my situation. Far from it. He is actually far greater than my situation and I have no more to fear from it than from any other threat. No one can touch me because I am His for all eternity.
I am seeing waves, and hearing the howling of the wind and it tries to demand my attention, insisting that I dwell fully on what is truly a scary and dangerous situation. Jesus reminds me that he is at peace, and he has offered that peace to me. He never said the storm wouldn’t come or that it wouldn’t be scary. He just reminds me that even the wind and waves obey him and I need to be more aware of HIM than I am of the storm.

“Fear not,” is a phrase God loves. Jesus said it a lot. These days I am discovering again and again how much I need to focus on Him in order to obey that simple request.

I’m praying for you. Pray for me. I pray we can all know the peace that goes beyond the understanding of this world.

Blessings to you.

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The Valley of Shadow

Personal

They were four, six, and eight years old as we brought them into the hospital room where he lay. The nurses had combed his hair, lowered the bed all the way down, and cradled a stuffed dog he’d been given under his now cold arm. Dad was gone, but to help our young children understand the new reality, they needed to come see, touch, and say goodbye to Papa.

We live in an age where we have moved death as far from us as possible. Even our language reflects this as we are more apt to say someone “passed” than say they “died.” My grandparents’ generation experienced the loss of children more often, and before the age of funeral homes (now remembrance centers), the deceased would be housed in the living room for the neighbors to come pay respects. Death was more closely connected to life.

We need to realize that we are likely returning to such a time. The rate of mortality of the current pandemic, which may get even worse if the current steps to slow the virus are removed, mean that many that we know and love may die in the next year. My wife and I have sat down and discussed the reality we may now face. We are likely to find death close to us repeatedly this year. Uncomfortably close.

The Psalmist called it the valley of the shadow of death. The valley is not something you enter when you die. The shadow is cast onto our lives while we are here. Every time we draw near death, either our own or someone close to us, we find ourselves in the shadow.

As Christians, and those of us who shepherd others spiritually, we need to be thinking and preparing the enter to valley of the shadow of death. We must be prepared not just to face our own death, but to cope with death as it impacts our lives. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we should fear no evil. I don’t want to die yet, nor do I want my kids, my mom, or my friends to die. We all will though, and in a time of pandemic, perhaps sooner than I thought. My hope must rest in the Lord as I face the valley of the shadow.

I’m praying for you and us all as we face the valley without fear through Jesus. I’m having the hard conversations, reflecting on the fact that I and my loved ones are all “but a vapor.” In these times, we do not have the luxury of pretending otherwise.

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