Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Isaiah 34-39
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 8:26
Jesus: Please! What are you so afraid of, you of little faith?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Fear, one of those deep-rooted emotions that keeps us alive at times, but also keeps us from accomplishing much if we don’t learn to control it. It’s interesting that the second most common fear in the world in the fear of death. The first is the fear of public speaking. Strange that we fear talking to a group of people more than we fear dying, but that’s what the literature tells us. And from those two phobias come a long list of things we fear.
Some of our fears just seem silly to most people, but if you suffer from them, they can be debilitating. You’ve probably heard stories, if you don’t know someone with the fear of the heights, or the fear flying, or the fear of roller coasters, or the fear of the dark. Those are just the tip of the iceberg, though. We fear almost everything as the human race. Someone, somewhere will be afraid of just about anything you can think of, so we can’t slap around the disciples too much since they were in the middle of a storm on the Sea of Galilee.
More than half of these guys were seasoned fishermen. They knew how to handle storms. They’d been caught out on the Sea of Galilee before when a storm came up. Storms weren’t anything new to them. But this one must have been a whopper. They were afraid. They didn’t know if they would make it to shore. And here was Jesus, the Son of God, just sleeping in the back of the boat. Maybe even snoring a little.
So they wake Him up. “Don’t you care that we’re going to die? How can you sleep when we’re risking our lives here? Can’t you help us keep this rickety boat afloat? Do something!”
I can imagine their angst in the middle of that stormy situation. Have you ever been there? Wondering what would happen next? Wondering how you would survive the next blows that came your way? If you live long enough, you’ll go through some of those times. No one is exempt from the troubles of the world. It doesn’t matter how rich or how poor you might be, everyone faces those times. Maybe it’s a financial crisis. Maybe the doctor just spoke the big “C” word. Maybe you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. Maybe your best friend and partner for life just passed away. We all face those storms in our life. Jesus promised we would. It’s part of the curse of Adam’s race. Sin entered the world and from the time we’re born this physical frame begins the process of dying in this physical realm.
And along that journey of life, we learn to fear. Some people fear more than others. But we all fear.
I find it fascinating, though, that every time God sends one of His messengers to earth to talk to one of His followers, and every time Jesus talks to someone in crisis, their first words are usually, “Don’t be afraid.” Fear can have a strangle hold on us and freeze us in place. It can paralyze us into inactivity so we are good for nothing. It can keep us from taking that necessary next step that leads to the release and freedom we so desperately seek. But we are afraid.
I love to watch little kids at playgrounds. They show us what’s it’s like not to fear. Watch them. They hang on the bars upside-down without a care. They race and climb and jump and sometimes they fall. It’s not until adults intervene and tell them something isn’t safe that they begin to curb their appetite for play. Little kids will do just about anything within their ability with no fear. They just do stuff. They exercise faith in their ability and their invincibility. We parents are the ones that instill that fear in them. We stop them cold and tell them they’ll get hurt. Don’t climb too high. Don’t swing too far. Don’t run too fast. Don’t … Don’t… Don’t… And so we build fear into them.
I’m told the only fear infants have is the fear of falling. Everything else we teach them with our constraints and dire warnings. Have you ever thought about had sad that is sometimes. So maybe we have taught out children, by our actions, to fear coming to Christ for salvation. Maybe our actions tell our children it’s not safe to give your all to the Master. Maybe we have demonstrated those dire warnings to our children that you better fear doing too much for Christ.
Can you trust Him with everything you have and everything you are? Can you get rid of the fear that keeps you from serving Him completely? Can you avoid the words His disciples heard in the boat, “What are you so afraid of, you of little faith”? Are you ready to act like a child and boldly step out and do the unthinkable when and where He leads you? I promise you, Jesus will never ask you to do something He and you cannot do together because He never fails. Never! So what are you so afraid of?
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