Ladera Ranch WyldLife... A Tiny Boat and a Big Storm

7:15, on a typical Friday morning in Ladera

First, I want to apologize for this being so late. Last Friday I was in Marathon, TX getting ready to run a marathon with my dad. It was the first Friday I have missed since we started WyldLife in Ladera last March, and the leaders (who are all volunteers) did amazing!! I could not be more proud of this team and each of the leaders that sacrifice their time to come and care for these kids.

Extreme Duck Duck Goose

The game they played was a brain child of Bryce. It was an extreme version of duck duck goose. I'm not really sure how it went, but it sounds like everyone had a blast.

Duck, duck, duck...

After the game they split into small(ish) groups and looked at the story of Jesus calming the storm. Its found in the book of Matthew 8:23-27, and Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25. In this story Jesus and his closest followers have just been at Peter's house (one of Jesus closest disciples) where Jesus healed many people. The crowd started getting big so Jesus told the disciples they needed to get into a boat and go to the other side of the sea. This sea was a very large lake surrounded by mountains. Even today, fierce storms can come up very quickly on this lake because of the way the mountains are formed around it.

This is what happened that night. Jesus and the disciples were about half-way across when a storm came up. These storms are so brutal that they can easily sink a small boat like the one they were using that night. As the disciples started to react to the storm, working furiously to bail out water and keep the boat afloat, they began to fear for their lives...  and as they caledl out to Jesus for help they noticed that he was taking a nap.

Jesus was asleep!

The disciples were working to save their lives, fearing that they wouldn't be able to, and as everything seemed to be falling apart, and as death seemed to be coming fast... Jesus was asleep.

There have been times in my own life when it has felt like this. There have been times when it seemed like life was falling apart, when everything I have held dear was breaking apart, and as I cried out to Jesus... there was no response. At the very moment when I thought Jesus should show up and bail me out, he was nowhere to be found, and my response is often a mixture of fear, desperation, and anger.

The disciples responded in the same way. Mark tells us that the disciples rebuke Jesus, saying, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

DON'T YOU CARE.

These disciples, who have given up everything to follow Jesus, are now wondering if Jesus even cares. They are in a boat that seems to be going down in the middle of a giant lake with land nowhere in sight, and Jesus is sleeping.

Jesus woke up, stood up, rebuked the wind and the waves saying, "Quiet! Be still!" and suddenly everything was calm. The water was glassy, the air still, and, besides from the dripping water coming off of the disciples clothes, everything was suddenly quiet. Jesus then looked around at the disciples, wet, tired, and bewildered, and asked them, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?"

Why were they afraid? Because they were in a sinking boat about to drown. As far as they knew from every other experience they had, there was every reason to be afraid... but Jesus was still with them, so there was nothing to fear.

The truest thing in the world is that Jesus will never leave us. This means that even when it seems he is nowhere to be found, he is right by our side. He may be quiet, he may not respond to our commands for him to come and bail us out, and sometimes he may even let the boat go down, but he is with us the whole time, so we have nothing to fear.

In my own life, the biggest boat I had for a very long time was my family. About 10 years ago this boat got swept up into a terrible storm, and I screamed at Jesus to wake up and fix everything. I questioned his love for me, and I questioned his power to rescue. That boat did go down. My parents got divorced and my family fell apart... and Jesus was with me every second, every step of the way. What I didn't know then was that Jesus was going to use that to bring me into a much deeper relationship with him that I could never have imagined. My faith in his ability to redeem and restore was going to grow in ways I could never have imagined, and I was going to love and trust him, because of that, in ways I could never have imagined. Honestly, I would never have moved to California, and never been called to do WyldLife in Ladera Ranch if that boat didn't go down.

The truth is, that even if the boat goes down, we are still with Jesus, and we will still have nothing to fear.

But, there are times when Jesus does save, and all it takes is a word. There are times when Jesus calms the storm, and makes things like as if nothing had ever happened. He is that powerful. Either way, Jesus, God, is with us, and his love, power, and ability to redeem never falter.

These leaders are amazing!