This Week wk07 - Mark 4:38-39

Hi, everyone. It’s Tricia, aong with Daisy. Thanks for joining us today.  And we’re here today with another Alone With God journal guide for you. Open your Alone With God journal to your page titled “This Week," and grab your Bible and a pen. If you don’t have an alone with God journal, contact us at wordbymail.com, and you can order one there.

This page, titled “This Week,” is simply to set your spiritual focus for the week. There’s a space to write your prayers for the week in the section titled My Prayers Are:

And below that, there is an area to write what your spiritual focus is this week. Where is God pointing you to focus? As you think about that, you can write it down in the section that says, My Spiritual Focus Is:

Now, Daisy is going to reflect on Mark 4 today. And maybe this is something you want to consider writing about in the spiritual focus section of your Alone With God journal.

Here’s Daisy.

Mark 4:38-39
38 But he was in the stern asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher! Do you not care that we are going to die?”
39 And he awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

I love that verse because it reminds me to anchor myself in the truth. And there are three truths about our storms when it comes to being Christians.

Number one, God is never, ever going to abandon us in the storm. And Jesus wasn’t asleep because he didn’t care about the Disciples, right? He was asleep because he knew that he had dominion over the sea and over the storm. And so, we can be sure that God is sovereign and that he protects us, and that he is always watching us, even when we are afraid and even when the storm feels like it is going to overpower us. It’s not.

Number two, the storm will not last forever. And I know the moment that calm hit that water, the Disciples felt a wave of relief, and they realized they were afraid for nothing. It’s so much easier to look back on the storm after it’s passed and realize it wasn’t that bad. So that when we’re in it, we have to remember it’s really not that bad, and God is in control, and he will bring us through it.

And number three, the storm is there to deepen our faith. And it might churn up false beliefs and create idols, and hinder us from seeing God in his fullness. But our faith, if we strengthen it, can overcome the storm. And God is tireless when he goes to bat for us. Even in the eye of the storm, God calls us to see the storm the way that he sees the storm.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, thank you for being our anchor in every storm. Help our hearts to fiercely cling to the truth of who you are. Lord, allow us to grow in our faith as we wait for the calm to come again. In Jesus’ name, amen.