Wilderness

Wilderness

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have — right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start — comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 1:26-30)

The Dead Sea is dying. Sounds like an oxymoron, I know. But drop by drop, it’s losing three feet a year. In other words, the Dead Sea’s shrinking. Galilee sends fresh water through the Jordanian Canal, water worthy of Jesus’ baptism. But the Dead Sea poisons it. Darkening and acidizing, it’s a regular saline cemetery. There’s little life in its waters. And its surroundings are equally lifeless. Ominous cliffs rise to the west, flattening out at about two thousand feet. Erosion has scarred the land into a patchwork of caves and ruts and sparse canyons. It’s home for hyenas, lizards and buzzards. And it was home to David for a decade.

Not by choice, mind you. He didn’t want to swap the palace for the badlands. No one chooses the wilderness. It comes at you from all directions — heat and rain, sandstorms and hail – while we prefer air-conditioned bedrooms and cul-de-sac safety. But sometimes we don’t have a vote. Calamity hits, the roof rips, the tornado lifts and drops us smack dab in the middle of the desert. Not the desert in Israel, but the desert of the soul. A season of dryness.

More than anything else, isolation seems to mark these seasons. Saul has effectively and systematically isolated David from every source of stability. His half-dozen assassination attempts ended David’s military career. His murderous pursuit drove a wedge in David’s marriage. After David’s wife, Michal, helped him escape, Saul demanded an explanation from her. “I had to,” she lied. “He threatened to kill me if I didn’t help him.” (1 Sam. 19:17) David never trusted his wife again. They stayed married but slept in different beds.

David races from Saul’s court to Samuel’s house. But no sooner does he arrive than someone tells Saul, “Take note, David is at Naioth in Ramah!” (1 Sam. 19:19) So, David flees to Jonathan, his soul mate. Jonathan wants to help, but what can he do? Leave the court in the hands of a madman? No, Jonathan has to stay with Saul, and David can see the rope fraying on his lifeline. No place in the court. No position in the army. No wife, no priest, no friend. Nothing to do but run. And although the wilderness begins with disconnections, it continues with deceit.

We see David’s deceit in Nob, the city of the priests. The city was holy; David was anything but. He lied each time he opened his mouth. In fact, David gets worse before he gets better. He escapes to Gath, the hometown of Goliath. He tries to forge a friendship based on a mutual adversary. If your enemy is Saul and my enemy is Saul, we become friends, right? Wrong. The Gittites weren’t feeling very hospitable. “Isn’t this David, the king of the land?” they asked. “Isn’t he the one the people honor with dances, singing, ‘Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” (1 Sam. 21:11)

David panics. He’s a lamb in a pack of wolves. Piercing glares, piercing spears. And right about now we’d like to hear a prayer to his Shepherd; we’d appreciate a pronouncement of God’s strength. But don’t hold your breath. David doesn’t see God. He sees trouble, instead. So he takes matters into his own hands. He pretends to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard. Finally the king of Gath says to his men, “‘Must you bring me a madman? We already have enough of them around here! Why should I let someone like this be my guest?’ So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam.” (21:14 – 22:1)

Can’t you just picture it? Staring with galvanized eyes. Quivering like jelly. He sticks out his tongue, rolls in the dirt, grunts and grins, spits, shakes and foams. David feigns something like epilepsy. The Philistines, however, believed that an epileptic was possessed by Dagon’s devil and that he made husbands impotent, women barren, children die and animals vomit. Fearing that every drop of an epileptic’s blood created one more devil, the Philistines drove epileptics out of their towns and into the desert to die. And that’s what they do with David. They shove him out the city gates and leave him with nowhere to go.

So now what? He can’t go to the court of Saul or the house of Michal, the city of Samuel or the safety of Nob. So he goes to the only place he can — the place where no one goes, because nothing survives. He goes to the desert, the wilderness. To the honeycombed canyons that overlook the Dead Sea. And there he finds a cave, the cave called Adullam. In it he finds shade, silence and safety. He stretches on the cool dirt and closes his eyes and begins his decade in the wilderness.

Can you relate to David’s story? Has your Saul cut you off from the position you had and the people you love? In an effort to land on your feet, have you stretched the truth? Distorted the facts? Are you seeking refuge in Gath? Under normal circumstances you’d never go there. But these aren’t normal circumstances, so you loiter in the breeding ground of giants. The hometown of trouble. You walk shady streets and frequent shadier places. And, while there, you go crazy. So the crowd will accept you, so the stress won’t kill you, you go wild. You wake up in a Dead Sea cave, in the grottoes of Adullam, at the lowest point of your life and feeling as dumb as a roomful of anvils. You stare out at an arid, harsh, unpeopled future and ask, “What do I do now?”

Well, let this same David be your teacher. Sure, he goes wacko for a few verses. But in the cave of Adullam, he gathers himself. The faithful shepherd boy surfaces once again. The giant-killer rediscovers courage. Yes, he has a price on his head. Yes, he has no place to lay his head, but somehow he keeps his head. He returns his focus to God and finds refuge.

Refuge surfaces as a favorite word of David’s. Circle its appearances in the book of Psalms, and you’ll count as many as forty-plus appearances in some versions. But never did David use the word more poignantly than in Psalm 57. Even the introduction to the passage explains its background: “A song of David when he fled from Saul into the cave.” So, close your eyes and envision Jesse’s son in the dimness: on his knees, perhaps on his face, lost in shadows and thought. He has nowhere to turn. Go home, he endangers his family; go to the tabernacle, he imperils the priests. Saul will kill him; Gath won’t take him. He lied in the sanctuary and went crazy with the Philistines, and here he sits. All alone.

But then he remembers: he’s not. He’s not alone. And from the recesses of the cave a sweet voice floats: Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge. (Psalm 57:1) Make God your refuge. Not your job, your reputation or your retirement account. Make God your refuge. Let him, not Saul, encircle you. Let him be the ceiling that breaks the sunshine, the walls that stop the wind, the foundation on which you stand. The truth is that most of us, like David, will never know that Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have.

Wilderness survivors find refuge in God’s presence. They also discover community among God’s people. “Soon [David’s] brothers and other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming — men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented — until David was the leader of about four hundred men.” (1 Sam. 22:1–2)

Not exactly a corps of West Point cadets. In trouble, in debt or discontent. Quite a crew. Misfits, yes. Dregs from the bottom of the barrel, no doubt. Rejects. Losers. Dropouts. Just like the church. (No, that’s not a typo) Because if we’re honest with ourselves, aren’t most of us the distressed, the debtors and the discontent? The Apostle Paul, talking to the church in Corinth, certainly thought so: “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of ‘the brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? (1 Cor. 1:26–28) Strong congregations are populated with current and former cave dwellers, people who know the terrain of Adullam. They’ve told a few lies in Nob. They’ve gone loopy in Gath. And they haven’t forgotten it. And because they haven’t, they imitate David: they make room for people like you and me.

And who’s David to turn these men away? He’s no candidate for archbishop, that’s for sure. He’s a magnet for marginal people. So David creates a community of God-seeking misfits, and God forges a mighty group out of them: “(t)hey came to David day by day to help him, until it was a great army, like the army of God.” (1 Chron. 12:22) Gath. Wilderness. Adullam. Folly. Loneliness. Restoration. David found all three. So did Whit Criswell.

Whit was raised in a Christian home. As a young man, he served as an officer in a Christian church. But he fell into gambling, daily risking his income on baseball games. Over the course of time, he lost $200,000.00 and found himself in desperate debt to his bookie. So, he decided to embezzle funds from the bank where he worked. Welcome to Gath.

Of course, it was only a matter of time until the auditors detected a problem and called him in for an appointment. Criswell knew he’d been caught. But the night before the meeting he couldn’t sleep. So, he resolved to take the path of Judas. Leaving his wife a suicide note, he drove outside of Lexington, parked the car and put a gun to his head. But he couldn’t pull the trigger, so he took a practice shot out the car window. He pressed the nose of the barrel back on his forehead and mumbled, “Go ahead and pull the trigger. This is what you deserve.” But he couldn’t do it. The fear that he might go to hell kept him from taking his life. Finally, at dawn, he went home, a broken man.

Meanwhile, his wife had found the note and called the police. She embraced him. The officers hand-cuffed him and led him away. He was, at once, humiliated and liberated: humiliated to be arrested in front of family and neighbors, but liberated from the chains of mistruth. He didn’t have to lie anymore. Whit Criswell’s Adullam was a prison cell. In it, he came to his senses; he turned back to his faith. Upon release, he plunged into the work of a local church, doing whatever needed to be done. Over a period of years, he was added to the staff of the congregation. He’s now the Senior Pastor at Cornerstone Christian Church in Winchester, Kentucky. Another David restored.

Are you in the wilderness? Crawl into God the way a fugitive would a cave. Find refuge in God’s presence. Find comfort in his people. Cast your hat in a congregation of folks who are one gift of grace removed from tragedy, addiction and disaster. Seek community in the church of Adullam. Refuge in God’s presence. Comfort in God’s people. Your keys for wilderness survival. Do this and who knows? In the midst of the desert you may write your sweetest psalms.

Grace,

Randy

Jonathan

Jonathan

After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. From that day on Saul kept David with him and wouldn’t let him return home. And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself. Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt. (1 Samuel 18:1-4)

Sharon checks her rearview mirror . . . again. She studies the many faces of the other drivers . . .  again. She keeps an eye out, because she knows he’ll come after her . . . again. “Nothing will keep me from you,” was the message Tony had left on her voicemail. “I’m your husband.” Her ex-husband’s fits of anger and flying fists and her black eyes had led to their divorce. Still, he neglected warnings, ignored restraining orders and scoffed at the law. So Sharon checks the rearview mirror . . . again.

Down the road, around the corner, an attorney named Adam does some checking of his own. He peeks in the door of his boss’ office, sees the empty chair, and sighs with relief. With any luck, he’ll have an hour, maybe two, before the managing partner appears in his doorway, likely hung over, angry and disoriented. Mouthpiece, Jr. inherited the firm from Mouthpiece, Sr. But managing the firm frustrates Junior. So, he reroutes his stress toward the employees he needs the most. Like Adam. Junior rants and raves, gives tongue-lashings daily, and compliments with the frequency of Halley’s comet.

Sharon ducks her ex, Adam avoids his boss, and you? What ogres roam your world? Coaches from the school of Stalin? The pit-bull math teacher? The self-appointed cubicle commandant? The king who resolves to spear the shepherd boy to the wall?

That last one – the one about the king and the murder weapon – comes after David. Poor David. The Valley of Elah proved to be his boot camp for the king’s court. When Goliath lost his head, the Hebrews made David their hero. People threw him a ticker-tape parade and sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” (1 Sam. 18:7) The result? Saul explodes like the Vesuvius he is, and Saul eyes David “from that day forward.” (18:9) The king is already a troubled soul, prone to angry eruptions and crazy enough to eat bees. So, David’s popularity splashes gasoline on Saul’s temper. “I will pin David to the wall!” (18:11)

Saul tries to kill Bethlehem’s golden boy on six different occasions. First, he invites David to marry his daughter Michal. Seems like a nice gesture, until you read the crude dowry that Saul required. One hundred Philistine foreskins. “Surely one of the Philistines will kill David,” Saul hopes. They don’t. David doubles the demand and returns with the proof. (18:25–27)

Saul doesn’t give up though. He orders his servants and his son, Jonathan, to kill David, but they refuse. (19:1) He tries with the spear another time but misses. (19:10) Saul then sends messengers to David’s house to kill him, but his wife, Michal (Saul’s own daughter), lowers him through a window. David the Roadrunner stays one step ahead of Saul the Coyote.

Saul’s anger puzzles David. What has he done? He’s brought musical healing to Saul’s tortured spirit, and hope to an enfeebled nation. He’s the Abraham Lincoln of the Hebrew calamity, saving the republic and doing it with modesty and honesty. He behaves “wisely in all his ways.” (18:14) “All Israel and Judah loved David.” (18:16) David behaves “more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name became highly esteemed.” (18:30)

Yet, Mount Saul keeps erupting, rewarding David’s deeds with flying spears and murderous plots. So, it’s not hard to understand David’s question to Jonathan: “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I offended your father that he is so determined to kill me?” (20:1) But Jonathan doesn’t have an answer. No answer exists. Who can justify the rage of a Saul?

Who knows why a father torments a child, a husband abuses his wife, or a boss pits employees against each other? But they do. Sauls still rage on our planet. Dictators torture, employers seduce, ministers abuse, priests molest, the strong and mighty control and cajole the vulnerable and the innocent. Sauls still stalk Davids in this world.

So how does God respond in these cases? Nuke the nemesis? We’d like him to since he’s been known to extract a few Herods and Pharaohs from the world. But how will he treat yours? I don’t know. But how he will treat you, I can. He will send you a Jonathan.

God counters Saul’s cruelty with Jonathan’s loyalty. Jonathan could have been as jealous as Saul. As Saul’s son, he stood to inherit the throne. A noble soldier himself, he was fighting Philistines while David was still feeding sheep. Jonathan had every reason to despise David, but he didn’t. He was gracious. Gracious because the hand of the Master Weaver took Jonathan’s and David’s hearts and stitched a seam between them. “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (18:1) It’s as if the two hearts were two fabrics that God needle-and-threaded together. So interwoven were they that when one moved, the other felt it. When one was stretched, the other knew it.

On the very day David defeats Goliath, Jonathan pledges his loyalty to David. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because Jonathan loved David as his own soul. So, as part of the pledge, Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, including his armor, even his sword and his bow and his belt. (18:3 – 4) Jonathan replaces David’s rancher’s overalls with his own purple robe: the robe of a prince. He presents his own sword to David. He effectively crowns young David. The heir to the throne surrenders his throne.

And then he protects David. When Jonathan hears the plots of Saul, he informs his new friend. When Saul comes after David, Jonathan hides him. He commonly issues warnings like, “My father Saul seeks to kill you. Therefore please be on your guard until morning, and stay in a secret place and hide.” (19:2) Jonathan gives David a promise, a wardrobe and protection. Perhaps that’s why David’s son, Solomon, writes much later, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Prov. 18:24) David had found such a friend in the son of Saul.

Wouldn’t you like to have a friend like Jonathan? A soul mate who protects you, who seeks nothing but your interests, wants nothing but your happiness. An ally who lets you be you. You feel safe with that person. No need to weigh thoughts or measure words. You know his or her faithful hand will sift the chaff from the grain – keep what matters, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. God gave David such a friend.

He gave you one as well. David found a companion in a prince of Israel, but you can find a friend in the King of Israel, Jesus Christ. And hasn’t he made a promise to you? Among his final words were these: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) And, like Jonathan, hasn’t he clothed you? He offers you “white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.” (Rev. 3:18) Christ fits you with clothing suitable for heaven.

In fact, he outdoes Jonathan. He not only gives you his robe; he puts on your rags. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21) Jesus dresses you. And, like Jonathan, he equips you. You are invited to “put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies and tricks of the Devil.” (Eph. 6:11) From his armory he hands you the belt of truth, the body armor of righteousness, the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (vv. 13– 17). And just as Jonathan protected David, Jesus vows to protect you. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them away from me.” ( John 10:28)

Do you long for one true friend? You have one. And because you do, you have a choice. You can focus on your Saul, or you can focus on your Jonathan; you can ponder the malice of your monster, or the kindness of your Christ.

“Beverly” chose the latter, but it wasn’t easy. How can you shift your focus away from the man who raped you? He entered Beverly’s home under the guise of official business. She had every reason to trust him because he was a personal acquaintance and professional associate. He worked for the state and asked to meet with Beverly. But when he arrived, he took more than her time. But when confronted, he denied and successfully covered up the deed. And as he continued to move up the political ladder, Beverly would spot him on the evening news. And while he feigned innocence, she churned within. But not like she used to.

Two years after the rape she met her Jonathan. A friend told her about Christ — his protection, his provision and his invitation. She accepted it. And although memories of the rape are unavoidable, they don’t control her. She isn’t left alone with her Saul anymore. She seeks Christ rather than revenge; she measures choices against his mercy, not her violator’s cruelty. Beverly ponders and praises the living presence of Jesus. And doing so heals her soul.

So, major in your evil emperor if you wish. Paint horns on his picture. Throw darts at her portrait. Make and memorize a list of everything the Spam-brain took: your childhood, career, marriage, health. Live a Saul-saturated life. Wallow in the sludge of pain. You’ll feel better, won’t you? Or will you? Because if you linger too long in the stench of your hurt, you’ll smell like the toxin you despise. The better option? Hang out with your Jonathan.

Bemoan your Sauls less, and worship Christ more. Join with David as he announces: “The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock! . . . It is God who avenges me, and subdues the peoples under me; He delivers me from my enemies. . . . You have delivered me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the Gentiles, and sing praises to Your name. (Ps. 18:46–49)

Wander freely and daily through the gallery of God’s goodness. Catalog his kindnesses. Everything from sunsets to salvation — look at what you have. Your Saul took a lot, but Christ gave you more. Let Jesus be the friend you need. Talk to him. Spare no detail. Disclose your fear and describe your dread.

Will your Saul disappear? I don’t know. But, in a sense, does it really matter? You just found a friend for life. What could be better than that?

Grace,

Randy

Courageous

Courageous

Don’t be afraid. You are worth much more than many sparrows. (Matt. 10:31) I tell you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough. (Matt. 6:25) Take courage. I am here! (Matt. 14:27) Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32) Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. . . . I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. ( John 14:1, 3) Don’t be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27) “Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt?” (Luke 24:38) You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. (Matt. 24:6)

Let’s face it. We fear being sued, finishing last or going broke. We fear the mole on the back, the new kid on the block and the sound of the clock as it ticks us closer to eternity. We create investment plans and install elaborate security systems, yet we depend on mood-altering drugs more than any other generation in history. But fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty, or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the door.

Wouldn’t it be great to walk out of that prison? Imagine your life completely untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? Envision a day, just one day, without the dread of failure, rejection and calamity. Can you imagine a life with no fear? That’s the possibility behind Jesus’ question: “Why are you afraid?” (Matt. 8:26)

At first, we wonder if Jesus is really serious. Maybe he’s kidding. You know, teasing, pulling a fast one. But Jesus doesn’t smile. He’s dead earnest. So are the men to whom he asks that question. A storm has turned their dinner cruise into a scene from Gilligan’s Island. And here’s how one of them remembered the trip: “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake so that waves covered the boat.” (Matt. 8:23–24)

These are Matthew’s words, and for Matthew, not just any description of a storm would do. He pulled his Greek thesaurus off the shelf and hunted for a descriptor that exploded like the waves across the bow that night. He bypassed common terms for spring shower, squall, cloudburst or a downpour. Those wouldn’t capture what he felt and saw that night. He recalled more than just the winds and the whitecaps. His finger followed the column of synonyms down the page until he landed on a word that worked. “Ah, there it is.” Seismos — a quake, a trembling eruption of sea and sky. “A great seismos arose on the lake.”

The term has a spot in our current vernacular. A seismologist studies earthquakes, a seismograph measures them, and Matthew, along with a crew of recent recruits, felt a seismos that shook them to their core. He used that word on only two other occasions: once at Jesus’ death when Calvary shook (Matt. 27:51–54), and again at Jesus’ resurrection when the graveyard tremored. (28:2) Apparently, the stilled storm shares equal billing in the trilogy of Jesus’ great shake-ups: sin’s defeat on the cross, death at the tomb, and fear on the high seas.

Sudden fear. We know the fear was sudden because the storm was. An older translation reads, “Suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea.” Bu not all storms come suddenly. Farmers can see the formation of thunderclouds hours before the rain falls. This storm, however, sprang like a lion out of the grass. One minute the disciples are shuffling cards for a game of Uno; the next they’re gulping sea spray. Peter and John, seasoned sailors, struggle to keep down the sail. Matthew, a confirmed landlubber, struggles to keep down his breakfast. The storm is not what the tax collector bargained for. Sense his surprise in the way he links his two sentences. “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake.” (8:23–24)

You’d hope for a chippier second sentence, a happier consequence of obedience, right? “Jesus got into a boat. His followers went with him, and suddenly a great rainbow arched in the sky, a flock of doves hovered in happy formation, and a sea of glass mirrored their mast.” Don’t Christ-followers enjoy a calendar full of Caribbean cruises? No. In fact, this story sends the not-so-subtle, and not-too-popular reminder that getting on board with Christ can mean getting soaked. Disciples can expect rough seas and stout winds. “In the world you will [not ‘might,’ ‘may,’ or ‘could’] have tribulation.” (John 16:33) The truth is that Christ-followers contract malaria, bury their loved ones, and battle addictions, and, as a result, face fears. But it’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart; it’s whom we discover in the storm – an unstirred Christ. “Jesus was sleeping.” (v. 24)

Now there’s a scene, isn’t it? The disciples scream; Jesus dreams. Thunder roars; Jesus snores. He doesn’t doze, catnap, or rest. He slumbers. Could you sleep at a time like this? Could you snooze during a roller coaster ride? How about falling asleep in a wind tunnel? And Mark’s gospel adds two curious details: “[ Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.” (Mark 4:38) In the stern, on a pillow. Why the first? And from where came the second?

First-century fishermen used large, heavy seine nets for their work. They stored the nets in a nook that was built into the stern for this purpose. Sleeping on the stern of the deck was impractical. It provided no space or protection. But the small compartment beneath the stern, however, provided both. It was the most enclosed and only protected part of the boat. So Christ, perhaps tired from the day’s activities, crawled beneath the deck to get some sleep.

There, he rested his head, not on a fluffy feather pillow, but on a leather sandbag. A ballast bag. Mediterranean fishermen still use them. They weigh about a hundred pounds and are used to ballast, or stabilize, the boat. So, did Jesus take the pillow to the stern so he could sleep, or sleep so soundly that someone rustled him up the pillow? We don’t know. But this much we do know. This was a premeditated slumber. He didn’t accidentally nod off. In full knowledge of the coming storm, Jesus decided it was siesta time, so he crawled into the corner, put his head on the pillow, and drifted into dreamland.

His snoozing troubled the disciples, however. Matthew and Mark record their responses as three staccato Greek pronouncements and one question. The pronouncements: “Lord! Save! Dying!” (Matt. 8:25) And the question: “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?” (Mark 4:38) They don’t ask about Jesus’ strength: “Can you still the storm?” His knowledge: “Are you aware of the storm?” Or his know-how: “Do you have any experience with storms?” Rather, they raise doubts about Jesus’ character: “Don’t you care . . . .”

Fear does that. Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. We begin to wonder if love lives in heaven. If God can sleep in our storms, if his eyes stay shut when ours grow wide, if he permits storms after we get on his boat, does he really care? Fear unleashes a swarm of anger-stirring doubts. And it turns us into control freaks. “Do something about this!” is the implication of the question from the sailors. “Fix it or . . . or . . . or else!” Fear, at its center, is a perceived loss of control. When life spins wildly, we grab for a component of life that we can manage: our diet, the tidiness of a house, the armrest of a plane, or, in many cases, people. And the more insecure we feel, the meaner we become. We growl and we bark. Why? Because we’re bad? In part. But it’s also because we feel cornered.

Fear deadens our recall. The disciples had reason to trust Jesus. By now they’d seen him “healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.” (Matt. 4:23) They had witnessed him heal a leper with a touch, and a servant with a command. (Matt. 8:3, 13) Peter saw his sick mother-in-law recover (Matt. 8:14–15), and they all saw demons scatter like bats out of a cave. (Matt. 8:16)

So, shouldn’t someone have mentioned Jesus’ track record, or review his résumé? Didn’t they remember the accomplishments of Christ? No, because fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia. It dulls our miracle memory. It makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is. It sucks the life out of our souls, and when fear shapes our lives safety becomes our god. And when safety becomes our god, we worship the risk-free life. But can the safety lover do anything great? Can the risk-averse accomplish noble deeds? For God? For others?

No. The fear-filled cannot love deeply because love is risky. They cannot give to the poor because benevolence has no guaranteed return. The fear-filled cannot dream wildly because what if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky? The worship of safety emasculates greatness. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear. His most common command emerges from the “fear not” genre. The Gospels list some 125 Christ-issued imperatives. Of these, 21 urge us to “not be afraid,” or “not fear,” or “have courage,” or “take heart,” or “be of good cheer.” The second most common command, to love God and our neighbor, appears on only eight occasions. So, if quantity is any indicator, Jesus takes our fears seriously. The fact is that the one statement he made more than any other was this: don’t be afraid.

Siblings sometimes chuckle at or complain about the most common command of their parents. They remember how Mom was always saying, “Be home on time,” or, “Did you clean your room?” Dad had his favorite directives, too. “Keep your chin up.” “Work hard.” So, I wonder if the disciples ever reflected on the most-often-repeated phrases of Christ. If so, they would have noted, “He was always calling us to courage.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to live in a state of fear. Nor do we because we’ve learned the high cost of fear. So, Jesus’ question is a good one. He lifts his head from the pillow, steps out from the stern into the storm, and asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26). To be clear, fear serves a healthy function. It is the canary in the coal mine warning of potential danger. Fear is the appropriate reaction to a burning building or growling dog. Fear itself is not a sin. But it can lead to sin.

If we medicate fear with angry outbursts, sullen withdrawals, self-starvation, or viselike control, we exclude God from the solution and simply exacerbate the problem. We subject ourselves to a position of fear, allowing anxiety to dominate and define our lives. Joy-sapping worries. Day-numbing dread. Repeated bouts of insecurity that petrify and paralyze us. Hysteria is not from God. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear” (2 Tim. 1:7). Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts. The promise of Christ is simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today.

“Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the waves, and it became completely calm.” (Matt. 8:26) The sea becomes as still as a frozen lake, and the disciples are left wondering, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (v. 27) What kind of man, indeed. Turning typhoon time into nap time. Silencing waves with one word. The disciples didn’t go under.

Neither will you.

Grace,

Randy