In the book of Mark, chapter 4, the Bible gives a lesson that offers us encouragement when facing hardship, especially when it may seem that God is silent during those seasons.
For context, that chapter details how Jesus spent the day teaching parables and going about His ministry. When evening came, Jesus and His disciples journeyed by boat to their place of retirement for the night.
“On the same day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Let us cross over to the other side.’ Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling.” Mark 4:35-37
On their boat journey home, the disciples were met with a fierce storm. The storm was so severe that their boat was beginning to fill with water from the beating waves. Out at sea, and vulnerable to the elements, their lives were at great risk.
The disciples, who walked and served most closely with Jesus, encountered fierce storms in their journey. There is a lesson for us about the reality that walking with God doesn’t prevent life’s storms; in fact, sometimes it may even invite them.
But as we look deeper into this experience, we learn a valuable lesson that will be useful to us when we face the storms of life.
Consider how the disciples responded to the storm:
“[Jesus] was in the stern (the back part of the boat), asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’” Mark 4:38
When the storm happened, Jesus was asleep and understandably tired after a long, busy day. In His sleep, Jesus was unaware of the storm. Notice, however, the question that the disciples asked of Jesus: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
When the disciples were facing the storm and noticed the apparent silence of Jesus, they interpreted this to mean that He possibly did not care about them. Their mistaken understanding was that “since we are going through this storm, and because Jesus is silent, maybe He just doesn’t care about us and our wellbeing…”
They judged the character of Christ based on their current circumstances and thus doubted His love and care for them. This was despite having seen Him work miracles before.
We may find ourselves doing the same when we face the storms of life and think that Jesus is silent. Trials may tempt us to ask, “Does Jesus actually care about what I am going through?” or, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
But notice how Jesus responds to the situation:
“When Jesus woke up, He rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Silence! Be still!’ Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then He asked them, ‘Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” Mark 4:39-40
The first thing Jesus did when the disciples cried out to Him was to address the very matter that they brought to Him, even in their doubt and despair.
In response to their doubtful question, Jesus asks them a question: “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
Jesus’ question indicates something about the spiritual condition of the disciples. He shows them that they had little faith. They doubted the character of Christ and His love for them.
The evidence of this little faith was in the act of looking at their present circumstances and using that to measure how much they think God cares about them.
In other words, when things were going well, the disciples were confident that Jesus loved and cared about them; but when things were not going well (like when the storm arose), the disciples started to question and doubt whether Jesus cared about them.
Jesus calls this little faith.
It is important to consider that our faith in God is influenced by what we understand about His character. When we believe that God loves and cares about us, our faith is strengthened, but if we hold a belief that God might not care about us, we become fearful and afraid.
Unfortunately for the disciples, their understanding of His character was informed by their present circumstances, not by who Jesus is. When they saw the apparent silence of Jesus during their storm, they assumed that He did not care, and thus their faith was weak.
When we judge God’s character by how well or how badly things are going in life, this shows evidence of little faith.
But Jesus does care, and He wants us to have strong faith. In order for us to have this kind of faith, our confidence in Him must be based on His character, and not only on the present circumstances of life.
Notice how Jesus does not answer the question that the disciples asked, “Master, don’t you care that we are perishing?” This is not because Jesus does not have an answer.
No. Rather, Jesus has given us immeasurable evidence of the fact that He cares about us, and that He is not willing that we should perish. We discuss this in more detail in another article: Faith During Trials: How God Is Unwilling to See You Perish.
For now, this story is to get us to ponder the foundation of our faith, and to assess whether our trust in God changes with the circumstances, or if it is grounded on His unchanging character.
