Under full sail, we were making good headway against a 15 knot wind. With a blue sea and swells of a meter or less, a bright blue sky fringed with hazy white clouds, conditions could not have been better for an offshore crossing from the island to a remote harbour on the mainland. As sight of land disappeared behind us there was nothing but sky and water and the sound of the wind on our sails. It was glorious!
Several hours passed when an odd edge to the wind aroused me from my reverie; just a few erratic puffs at first and then a slight easterly shift. Something didn’t feel quite right and as I scanned the horizon for tell-tale signs of a weather front, I noticed an ominous dark squall line and white water in the distance. “Let’s reef the jib,” I called to my sailing partner. “There seems to be a bit of weather coming our way.” Within minutes the sky became overcast, the wind shifted precipitously to the southeast with gusts increasing to more than 25 knots, and the sea’s rhythmic swells became a turbulent contradiction of two meter waves crossing three to four meter swells. Without realizing it, we were sailing right into the shifting path of a dying tropical storm. So much for marine weather forecasts!
Now we were sailing with only a storm jib and engine power as we struggled to maintain a safe course against the growing onslaught of wind and waves. It was wild, unlike any storm I’ve encountered on the sea and I cried out to the Lord of land and sea to spare us from disaster. Finally, after several more treacherous hours we spotted headland and a buoy marking the entrance to a small fishing harbour. We made it into the relative safety of the harbour. By the grace of God we safely made it! All night long the storm persisted with winds inside the harbour topping 50 knots!
For weeks before this, I had been pondering the experience of Jesus and His disciples who were overtaken by a sudden storm at sea.1 With the disciples in “all hands on deck mode” desperately fighting against the shrieking storm to keep the boat from capsizing, Jesus was sound asleep. I find this scene totally astounding, for I have never slept nor can I imagine anyone sleeping on a boat through the middle of a ferocious gale as the wing screams through the rigging and as roiling waves toss the vessel about like a piece of cork. To sleep through something like that would be completely unnatural! Fear, anxiety, desperation – these are the emotions people tend to experience in a storm at sea; they are alert, not asleep.
Certain that calamity was overtaking them and that they were about to drown, the fearful men roused Jesus from sleep – “Lord save us! We’re going to drown!”
Now that is a prayer I can relate to. Yet much to my astonishment, as I am sure it was to theirs, Jesus reacted by rebuking them for being afraid and for being men of “little faith.” I find such a response difficult to understand, after all, the men cried out for the Lord to save them, not for the Coast Guard or Neptune2 or Palaimon3 to save them, but for the Lord to save them. Doesn’t that seem like the typical cry of faith? When they knew that all was lost and that there was nothing more they could do to keep their boat afloat, they cried out to the Lord – and I have done the same (although I think I tend to begin praying a bit earlier than at the desperate end.)
As I consider this story and my recent experience I ponder on what happened and what happens to me in the centre of the storm, and I think about what it is that centres me in the middle of the storm. Does fear take over the centre of my existence or does faith remain my centre? Am I centred on impending calamity or on Christ? It would seem to me that Jesus did not rebuke the men for waking Him up or even for crying out to Him in their distress; I think He rebuked them for being centred in their fear, for totally giving in to fear. They knew that they were going to drown – they ‘knew’ that all was lost and were more certain of drowning than of rescue – notwithstanding the fact that Jesus was in the boat with them.
In the storms of life, as on the sea, there are storms that can be predicted and those that come upon us as if out of nowhere. There are storms we can prepare for and those that catch us unaware. Prepared or not, we cannot always avoid the centre of the storm. The challenge to our faith is not one of avoiding the storm or unrealistically turning our back to it. The challenge is to not allow the frightful centre of the storm to overcome or supplant faith as the centre in our lives. There is a world of difference between being centred in the inevitability of fate as opposed to being centred in faith in God. The way of faith is to be centred in Him whatever storms of injustice, oppression, disaster, or malice may overtake us. To be centred in God is to deny the storm its ultimate fright and might.
2 Neptune is the god of the sea in Roman mythology and is analogous but not identical to the god Poseidon of Greek mythology
3 Palaimon (or Palaemon) in Greek mythology was a young sea-god who, with his mother Leukothea, came to the aid of sailors in distress.
Ron W. Nikkel is the president and CEO of Prison Fellowship International (PFI). For more information, visit the PFI website.