Mark 4 brings us an interesting series of events in the life of Jesus and his friends. After teaching His Word to crowds of people Jesus invites His friends to get away for a while to the other side of the lake. The text says other boats followed and soon a fierce storm came upon them. Jesus was asleep resting after His day of teaching until, at the point of fear for their lives, His friends wake Him up the scripture says by shouting at Him “ don’t You care we are about to drown”.

Jesus woke up and simply said “peace be still” and there was a “great calm”. We often focus on the miracle as that is what we pray for in our lives and the lives of our friends. The value however, in our day to day lives is found in the text before the miracle.

How often do we go about our lives in a normal day moving along with the crowd and taking the day to day flow as a “peaceful” existence? Then thru some circumstance we are separated from the crowds of comfort by a storm in our lives. We do all we can but can’t get out of the storm and at some point, realize we can’t do it alone so we shout at God – “hey look at the mess I am in, don’t you care that I am in trouble and about to drown”? We are unable to see that God’s plan separated us from others so He could get our focus back on Him. The storms are often part of our lives to bring us closer to God. Jesus question to His friends is the same for us today – “Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no Faith?” The storms bring us back to God and the Peace we find in God strengthens our Faith and that provides us a promised, Peace of Heart, Mind and Spirit. That is the Peace God wants us to have in our hearts and share with others in our day to day travels through life.