The Master of the Sea

One night back in September, I was having some serious trouble sleeping. A friend suggested to me that I try looking up some Scriptures about sleep so that I could pray about these things and hopefully get to sleep. I listened to him and pulled out my phone; I typed “sleep” into the search bar on my Bible app. I then read the top results to my friend. Here’s what I got:

1. “If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.” (Mark 13:36)

2. “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.” (Psalm 3:5)

3. “Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless go hungry.” (Proverbs 19:15)

Of course, these were of no help to me and my friend knew so immediately. He then suggested that I try taking a shower and then lying in bed until I could fall asleep. That was also a mistake. I got to thinking about these Scriptures and knew that surely there could be something in the Bible to help me sleep. I finally thought of a passage and started writing down my thoughts.

Mark 4:35-41 says “That day when evening came, He said to His disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, why don’t you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to His disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They were terrified and asked each other ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!’”

In this story, we see Jesus asleep at the back of the boat in the middle of a huge storm that has His Apostles, experienced sailors, terrified of what could happen. Because of this, they wake Jesus. It seems like a step of faith for them to have done this because it showed that they trusted Him, yet Jesus rebuked them, asking them if they had no faith.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about how Jesus is constant despite everything else in our lives that changes. The next week, I wrote about biases, and last week, I wrote about worry. All of those posts can be tied together by lessons which can be learned from this story.

Francis Chan once compared salvation to the Noah’s ark, using 1 Peter 3:20-21. He said that Jesus is the ark that we step into when we are baptized. Even after our salvation, when we see the winds and the waves and all of the other variables in life that could drown and overwhelm us, we often worry and become afraid. We may even feel as if God is asleep and doesn’t care about our troubles. We may even assume that the best thing to do is wake Jesus up and find Scriptures that support our beliefs that we are in serious trouble, but Jesus is constantly there, watching over us and telling us that “it’s just a thing” because we are on his ship and He is the “Master of the Sea.”

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…” Isaiah 43:1-3