Sea Storm

Earlier this week, I read a Max Lucado book that was really short, probably really an excerpt for another he's written.  It was about what you really say inside when life is rough.  When I read it, I thought about one of the most intriguing stories in the Bible, which has always been, for me, when Jesus calms the storm.   

I know the connection.  And it's been said before.  Despite my entire childhood in farmland, there is a very real side of me that also loves the sea.  I felt homesick when I saw it, and if that didn't make me think of Heaven I don't know what does.  

I think about the sea when I think about God because it makes sense to me.  And I love in the story that at the end, peace is all that is left.  Sometimes I have felt this peace deep down in my bones, in an insular way, when everything else the in world in front of me is going dead wrong.  And I should be saying otherwise.  And this is what it is like to know Jesus. 




This story feels like one that is all my own because I am drawn to the nature instead in it instead of the people.  Usually I am drawn to the people.  But I blaze through that part because I know that reaction.  I don't need to ruminate about the people freaking out in the boat because I see this.  In people in my world.  And in myself.  

Very often I AM that reaction. 

This story tells me how human I am.  I have found that to be really alive is both exhilarating and raw.  You feel can feel rich from all moments, and see that things really are put together like symphonies.  But then sometimes it is unbelievably painful.  This week, underneath the rest of life, it has been the latter.

Max Lucado has a style...it is very conversational and descriptive.  It tells stories well.  I imagine he would be a great guest at a dinner party because he also seems to know silence.   Here are some things he wrote in this book. 

"The very storm that made the disciples panic made him drowsy.  What put fear into their eyes put him to sleep.  The boat was a tomb to the followers and a cradle to Christ.  How could he sleep through the storm?  Simple - he was in charge of it."
....
"I am more of a landlubber than a sailor, but I've puttered around in a bass boat enough to know the secret for finding land in a storm....You don't aim at another boat.  You certainly don't stare at the waves.  You set your eyes on an object unaffected by the wind - a light on the shore - and go straight toward it.  The light is unaffected by the storm.  By seeking God, you do the same.  When you set your sights on God, you focus on One who can overcome any storm life may bring."


So this is what I am doing.