Don’t Worry - The One Year At His Feet Devotional
Don’t Worry
Read: Mark 4:35-41
“Quiet! Be still!”
Mark 4:39
“There is no need for two to care, for God to care and the creature too.”
—Charles Spurgeon
IN WORD There is something profoundly comforting about the fact that Jesus can immediately quiet the winds and waves that besiege us. It doesn’t matter whether they are forces of nature, forces of the underworld (see the next passage, Mark 5:1-20, for an example), forces of the circumstances that surround us, or forces of our own creation. Whatever is out of control, He can control it.
The unsettling part of this is that He often doesn’t. We, like the disciples on the boat, have fretted over threatening forces and said to Him: “Don’t you care if we drown?” (v. 38). And while we can certainly assume that He cares, we cannot assume that the winds will die down right away. Sometimes He lets them rage. Perhaps it is to prolong the question of verse 40—”Do you still have no faith?”—or to cultivate in us the right answer to that question. Whatever the reason, it is alarming, and we cannot calm down until we are able to join in the affirmation of verse 41—“Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Only when we are there can we rest.
The assurance we have is that He will bring us there. It is a certainty, just as certain as the disciples’ safety in the boat that day. He was not going to let them drown, no matter how afraid they became. Even when it seemed all else was completely out of control, He wasn’t. There was purpose in His silence, and there was good timing in His rebuke of the elements. He doesn’t miss a thing.
IN DEED What threatens you? Are you feeling out of control? Perhaps the elements have frightened you out of your wits. Don’t worry. He is the absolute authority over everything in your life, if you will trust Him with it. There is perfect timing in His commands, and your storm will not linger a moment too long. Recognize who He is—even join in His rest in the back of the boat. Learn that when you are with Him, every threat is a false one.
