Today’s passage is Mark 4:35-41. On the way across the lake, a storm comes, threatening to sink the boat Jesus and his disciples are in. Jesus is asleep, the disciples wake him in fear, he calms the storm, and then berates them for lack of faith.
What storm are you going through?
How is your faith like a sinking boat?
Today I finally finished the letter I was writing to my son as both a reflection on God the Father’s words to Jesus after his baptism and an application of those words in my own life.
In my letter I spoke of my own father telling me those same three things--you are my son, I love you, I’m pleased with you--in a dozen different ways, but which I never said to my son.
As I recalled my father’s love and his lack of harsh words to me, I cried in repentance for my weakling love towards him.
For most of my life I was arrogant towards my father and judged him instead of loving him. I never saw his heart with my heart.
My arrogance made me the weaker man although I thought I was the stronger with my intellect and my reading.
But it was his unfailing love for me, his pleasure in my little successes, and his unasked-for help (as well as help asked for!) that made him the stronger man.
As memories of my harshness towards him piled up, I cried and cried.
I emptied a box of tissue wiping up my tears.
I felt broken-hearted at how I had failed my father and failed God by failing to love the father he gave me.
My little boat of self-sufficiency was sinking under the weight of my tears.
I couldn’t ever remember showing my father any sympathy.
I never empathized with him when my mother committed adultery and ran away with another man.
I never tried to be a help to him when my sister caused so many problems and frustrated him so much.
I seem to be in perpetual repentance for my arrogance towards my father.
I wasn’t a complete reprobate, however. In my early manhood I did write him a letter of loving appreciation, which I discovered he kept in his drawer of most valuable things.
I think my discovery of that was the beginning of my realization about how my father felt about me and the beginning of a long, slow repentance that I was able to make to him just before he died.
But still it goes on.
I have suffered only a few shocks to my heart during my life, but those shocks have softened my hard heart a little, which is why I still cry over my father.
I hope my heart will be strong enough to cry over others one day.
Application: keep inviting Jesus into my pain.
Lord, let me see others with your heart. Cleanse my heart of arrogance so that I can love.
