Jon Allen

One of our family’s favorite activities in the summer is fishing. While I prefer, and am almost exclusively a fly fisherman, my family prefers fishing from our boat. We have fished almost all of the local lakes at one time or another but most of our boat fishing has been on Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

If you own a boat and have been on Buffalo Bill at any time, you know just how quickly the wind and a storm can come up on that body of water. We have been out there a handful of times where waves were high and water spray in the boat became a problem.

That doesn’t even take into account loading the boat on the trailer in that weather.

Recently, I have been reading through the book of Mark as I make my way through the Bible in a year and have come across the story of Jesus calming the storm on the sea.

The scene plays out like this:

Jesus and his disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee when all of a sudden a violent storm comes up and threatens to capsize the boat. All the while Jesus lay sleeping in the stern of the boat. The disciples panic and immediately go and wake Jesus who in turn says three words, “Quiet, be still.” 

And it was. It was immediately still.

It got me thinking about the storms of life that have a tendency to just come up from time to time. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Jesus there to say those three words and calm our storms in life?

The good news is that he does just that if we ask. Philippians 4:6-7 tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Just like the disciples in the throes of a massive storm on the sea, we too can ask Jesus to calm the storms in our lives. It’s interesting that these verses conclude with “in Christ Jesus.” Interesting and important. We are being called into relationship with Jesus here.

Jesus is the perfect one who came to die on the cross for our sins and be raised on the third day to give us forgiveness of sins and give us a rightful place in his presence for eternity. He did this to have a relationship with us and it's within this relationship that he calms our storms.

So, enter into that relationship by trusting that his sacrifice gave us the right to be in relationship with him and allow him to not only calm your storms but be in charge of  every part of our lives.

We can then go to him in the storms of life and know he is there to give us peace that we can never completely understand. Do you need that peace right now in your life?

Reach out to the only one that can give it to you, Jesus.

(Jon Allen is an associate pastor at Grace Point in Powell.)