Jesus was by the lake with His disciples and the crowd. He had been teaching them by telling parable after parable and was now tired and weary. He needed to ‘recharge His batteries’. ‘Let us go over to the other side,’ He said Matthew 4:35. As I re-read this story I noticed something I had failed to noticed before. There were other boats with Him, verse 36.
It was usual for boats to sail in groups. The only difference was Jesus was in one boat with His disciples, the other boats didn’t have Jesus sleeping in their boat. The disciples were frightened when the storm arose, imagine how frightened the other fishermen would have felt!
I expect you can see where I’m going. Firstly, do we have Jesus in our troubled sea of life? And if we do, what difference does it make? A life without Jesus is an uncharted life, with the person being tossed about by every chance wind and disaster. What a difference it should make if Jesus is with us. He won’t be asleep. He is awake and longing to be at the centre of our lives. We need to talk with Him and obey Him. He may ask us to ‘fish on the other side of the boat’ and ask us to uproot from our comfortable lives and go. He just says to us, ‘My child, do not be afraid. I am with you wherever I send you.’