Matthew 8:25-27 And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”  And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Save us Lord; we are perishing

Everybody dies. It’s a concept most people on this earth agree on. It’s what happens after death that gets people pretty wound up. Of course when the disciples said this, it wasn’t their time to die, and Jesus was with them, but they didn’t have faith that he would take care of it. They were freaking out. Some of us might say “I’m gonna die” or “I thought I was gonna die”, but no matter how you say or think it, most of us at times have had little faith. We’ve relied on ourselves or other people to handle the stuff that seemed out of our control. We freak out. Some of us hold on tighter and try to fix it ourselves without ever asking for help. Others of us don’t trust in the gifts God has given us to handle the situation and abandon ship before there is even really a problem.

Then he rebuked the winds and the sea

Sometimes things do go wrong around us. Things we really have no control over. But we can rest assured that Jesus has got our back and can change things on a dime. He can change things in ways we didn’t even think could happen. Do you see how the disciples react to the way Jesus changed things? They were shocked. They said, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” They just didn’t get it, and they were among the one’s who got it best. So even if we normally have strong faith, sometimes the devil finds just the right thing to push our buttons and make us freak out. He knows just what we’ll be irrational about, which things will make us panic, and he hopes he can make us not trust God. And then he’ll do it again, because the devils not satisfied with us being “of little faith”. The devil wants us to be of no faith. We have to ask the Lord to help us not to give in to the temptation to freak out and not trust in the Lord.

And there was a great calm

It’s as if Jesus woke up and said, “I got this”. He just came up and showed us all who He is and what He has power over. He has power over everything, even nature. I should have remembered all of this last night at three when I was freaking out. Over the past few days, I have gotten strange bug bites. Most of them different from each other, but at 3am, I felt like bugs were crawling up and down my legs (not unusual with MS), but with all of my recent bug bites, it made me freak out. My husband and I just spent a weekend in Idaho for his niece’s wedding (which was amazing), and he’s staying behind to visit for a few more days. In my freak out state, I called my father, convincing him my bites were so dire I needed to go to the Doctor. I sent a text to my husband at what was 5:50 his time, then one at 7 am his time to talk him into my panic. He wasn’t having any of it. He talked me down from the cliff. He said I had some bites from being at the farm where the wedding was held, to calm down and go back to sleep. There was nothing to be worried about.

So I just woke up from a two-hour nap of blissful sleep after a complete freak out. And there was nothing actually wrong. This is a small version, some of us have even bigger freak outs about real problems (not imagined like mine). But in each freak out we need to look at reality and who is really in control. Is God telling you “I got this” while you continue to freak out running around the boat trying to wake someone up to help you?

Are you freaking out?