And when he got into the boat,
his disciples follow him, right? In verse 24, and behold, there
arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped
by the waves. Now, ancient people, they looked,
they saw a storm as the most chaotic and powerful thing that
you can truly experience in life. And I would argue that that's
probably the same nowadays, actually. We've come up with our nuclear
warheads and all that other stuff and so on. But a good old-fashioned
hurricane whipping through is able to wipe out entire cities,
right? Whole swathes of people and land
in ways that is really unprecedented. And this storm that they're in
is bringing them to a place of just powerlessness. They're being
led into a place when this storm rises up very quickly, begins
to make them feel like, we're going to sink. Notice that they're
being swamped, and they find themselves in a powerless situation. And that storm that they experience
is really a metaphor of the storm of life. the same types of storms
that we experience and maybe you or myself are even experiencing
in a moment like this, right? You find yourself in a situation
where you're just asking for peace. You don't know what you're going
to do about a given relationship, your career, You find yourself
in a situation where you're, man, I'm losing control over
this. It feels like I'm going to sink.
Verse 24, again, it says, And behold, there arose a great storm
on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.
And it says, But he was asleep. Jesus was asleep. I like to call
Jesus in this passage, Sleepy Jesus. The storm comes. And right when I need God, right
when it would be really great for Him to show up and take care
of the wind and the waves and calm the sea, Jesus is sleepy. And what I think that really
begins to speak to us is that when the storm rages, when those
waves come up on life very quickly and you find yourself in this
situation, oftentimes God isn't in a big hurry to calm the storm. A lot of times the winds will
rage, the waves will feel like they're going to absolutely sink
the boat. You feel like yourself, you're going to sink, you're
going to die before he decides to do anything about it. And
that's why I say even when we find ourselves in this powerless
situation, oftentimes it gets worse because we find that, man,
it sure seems like God is sleeping on the job. When we go to hurry
God, we're really not living by His wisdom at all, right?
We have no faith that His wisdom, His ways, His thoughts are above
our thoughts or our ways. Right? That his plans are greater
than what my plans might be. Some of you in here football
fans? Yeah? You guys know what football is? The rest of you?
Those of you, it's like a, yeah. So it's a big field, right? A lot of people out on the field.
They're all kind of crumbled together. You know, they're all
bunched together. Right? They're huddling up. And then
they're, you know, you know that football, teams, they have coaches
up in the suites. You know that? You never notice
that some of you may not realize this. I'll educate you. But you
know, a football coach on the sideline, he's got that headset
on. You ever wonder why he has that headset on? Because he's
talking to a guy up there, or a coach up there. And that coach
up there is going, hey, run this play, because you can't see it,
but this guy is wide open. Every play, this guy is breaking
free, he's wide open. You can't see it. Why? Because
your perspective is very limited. In fact, the people who are usually
closest to the action have the worst perspective. God's perspective
is much bigger. It's much greater. And those
of us, right, who are real close to the action, We usually can't
see the forest because of the trees. We can't see beyond. We can't see. You've got to kind
of get out on that mountaintop in order to see, oh, this is
the way out. When we're in the storm, when
life brings these things towards us, and we feel like we're going
to sink, we feel like we're going to drown, in these moments, we've
got to realize, man, I'm trying to wake up God. I feel like he's
sleeping on the job. Because I am limited in my perspective. And so what that would mean is
this. When you're in the storm, maybe some of you are really
in this place right now. And you're fearful. You're afraid
of what the future has on the horizon. You don't know what's
going to be happening. Listen, in the moments that we're
in these paralyzing situations, this is how we should pray. You know, I know that I agree. I don't see everything that you're
doing. But help me to pray for everything
that you know that I need. Right? Because God, if I knew
everything that you know, I would always agree with everything
you do. And whenever I don't agree with
what you do, it's because I'm limited in what I know. God,
help me to remember that Your ways are above my ways. Your
thoughts are above my thoughts. Your perspective is greater than
my perspective. And in these moments where I
feel like I'm alone, In these moments where I feel like I'm
losing control, God, help me to remember that you are working
out all things for my good. God, you're using every situation
for your glory. God, that you are here with me,
and you're not sleeping on the job in the sense that you don't
know what's going on. You do know what's going on.
And that I can trust you. That's how our prayer should
ultimately be. God can't be hurried, and why
would I want to hurry Him when He knows more than I do, and
His ways are above my ways?