It has been an interesting week on a number of levels. We returned from Tampa late on Sunday and hit the ground running on Monday. My 6-year-old son had his field day right away on Monday, so I attended that for a while. I had some work to do on one of our vans. But, before anything even happened, my coffee grinder stopped working. You should have heard my lamenting! Of all the days to have a catastrophic failure of this precious piece of equipment! I felt like Job. (okay, maybe not) I managed to survive, but it was not easy.
Wednesday I took my mom back to the airport. She had spent a few weeks at our house and stayed with the kids while we were away. It is always hard to see her go because we do enjoy having family around. On the way back I blew a tire on my van. The good news was that it blew in a ‘calm way’ and we did not get injured. The bad news was that the tire was ruined. As I looked at the other tires it became obvious that I needed new ones. I love when money vanishes from my bank account, don’t you? To add to the fun of the week of tires, the tire on the other van got a screw in it last night. My wife went to a meeting and I had all the kids at someone’s house when I noticed the tire was getting low. Just then song from the “Twilight Zone” began in my head. We lived close so we just went home. Upon arriving home, my kids were not being what I would call cooperative. Shocking, right? My oldest son managed to break a light bulb on the bedroom floor and my youngest son came and stood on the broken glass. In the mean-time, my daughter was running around the house with her toothbrush and I was trying to figure out where to even begin. It was chaos.
The week had other moments of stress in it. People have issues to be handled. Ministry involves pressures and listening to the Lord, which is not always an easy thing. All of these things put together can make one anxious. In fact, when I read the story of Jesus calming the storm this week I felt like I could relate to the disciples. There are so many pieces flying around that it can be hard to stop and consider that the Lord is actually there in the midst of it all.
Think about the parallels here. The boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. (Luke 8:23) Were they really in great danger or did they just think they were? All I know is that they felt like the ship was going down and there was nothing they could do about it. So, they went and got Jesus. What is intriguing about it is that it doesn’t say they asked him to stop the storm. It was as if they were just going to help him find his life vest. But, Jesus rebukes the storm and it stops. He then asks them a very probing question, “Where is your faith?”
I know that my list of things is small compared to what many are facing. Even so, it doesn’t make the question any less important. Placing faith in circumstances, jobs, or people will leave us sinking at some point with no real way out. What a difference it does make to know that there is one in the boat who has the power over everything. Where is your faith?
No Throw Aways 