How is it?
A social media post making the rounds points out that you have a 100% survival rate of surviving your worst days so far. Those are excellent odds. In the face of today’s news, social media posts and talking heads, it’s easy to forget that. So much bad news is swirling around us. Many of us know those who are fighting Coronavirus and life still goes on with cancer diagnosis’, broken bones, broken homes and child abuse. Our military continues to fight on foreign fields and now must fight this disease also. We have been isolated to our homes and our children have been pulled from their schools and routines. We are told that these are unprecedented times. I don’t know if that’s true, certainly, in my life it is unprecedented. I read reports from the depression and the 1918 Spanish flu, they rival today’s news. I daresay, our fellow humans living in the middle east, might think we are having it easy. Nonetheless, it’s a turbulent time.
In Mark 4, Jesus and his disciples faced a turbulent time. It’s a familiar story about a trip Jesus and his friends took to the other side of the lake. A huge storm comes up, Jesus is sound asleep, the disciples get terrified and wake Him. He calms the sea and then says something I’ve often overlooked in verse 40.
“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” One translation says “How is it that you have no faith?” Think on that for a minute. These men had been with Jesus for months now, they had watched him heal the sick, cast out demons, speak to multitudes; and still cried out in fear, “Don’t you care if we perish?”
I confess, that over the last few weeks, I have cried out, “Jesus, Jesus, where are you? Don’t you see what’s happening? Don’t you care?”
It would be easy today to wonder if He cares. Coronavirus is sweeping our world, the ill are frightened, the children are confused and adults are disappointed. And He says to me, “How is it?”
The lyrics of a song from the 90’s speak to this for me.
How is it that my faith waver in these days? Thinkin’ about it.
