Mark 4:38-40
And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?  And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

Jesus asks His disciples two very pointed questions when they come to Him in the midst of the storm.  The first is, “Why are you so fearful?”  And that’s a good question to ask ourselves when we face something challenging and scary and we start to panic or become overwhelmed.  What is the source of our fear?  What kinds of things are we afraid of?  Why do those things bring so much fear into our lives?

The second question Jesus asks is, “How is it that you have no faith?”  And that is a good question for us, as well, because faith is the answer for our fear.  When we identify what it is that we are afraid of, we have to look for a faith answer.  If it is the wind and the waves that have made us so fearful, doesn’t God control those things?  If it is our circumstances, wasn’t Jesus the one who asked us to get in the boat and go across?

For the disciples, it wasn’t that Jesus didn’t care about this situation, but it was that they had no faith.  That fear always rises up when we are not trusting Jesus.  The waves and the wind were scary.  Water was filling their boat.  The wind was pushing them around.  And so they got caught up in their circumstances and forgot about Jesus.  It’s easy sometimes for us to be consumed by what we see and feel and what is happening around us and forget that Jesus is always with us.

There is nothing beyond God, nothing we can ever face that is bigger than Him.  There is nothing that He cannot help us with or through.  Sometimes He takes away the source of our fear by stopping the storm completely.  But other times, He sends His peace and draws near with His presence and rides it out with us.  Either way, we can trust Him.  When the disciples came to Jesus with their fear, He brought peace to the situation—peace from the storm and peace to their anxious hearts, and He will do the same for us.