Storms of Life
Hi everybody, it’s Pastor Dave with another “Daily Journal” guide for your Alone With God journal. If you have an Alone With God journal, open it to your next “Daily Journal” page. If you don’t, you should check it out at wordbymail.com. And be sure to download the Word By Mail phone app for your phone.
Listen, today’s kind of a part two devotional journal guide. Yesterday we started talking about storms and how Jesus uses storms in our lives. And yesterday, we really focused on Jesus challenging the Disciples and challenging us to answer the question where is your faith in the storm?
Well, today, we’re going to just jump ahead a little bit, and we’re going to look at another storm. And we’re going to see that Jesus uses storms in our lives to teach us some of the deepest spiritual truths that he needs to teach us. So. Grab your Bible, and grab your journal if you have it. You can use a blank journal, too, but for sure, grab your Bible. Open it to Mark Chapter 6.
I’ve got to set this one up for you because it’s so clear how Jesus works here. And I really pray that you see this in your life – how Jesus works.
So, here’s how it starts. In Mark Chapter 6, in verse 6 (basically), Jesus sends out the twelve Disciples on their first missionary journey. And he says, don’t take anything, don’t take any money, and go from house to house. And man, this is heavy on them. This is really a big burden for them to go out on their first big missionary journey.
And then, when they get back, it seems like right as they’re getting back, the death of John the Baptist reaches Jesus and the Disciples. And it’s a heavy, heavy thing for John the Baptist to have been killed. This is Jesus’ cousin. And so, it’s heavy on Jesus, it’s heavy on the Disciples.
And then, we’re down in verse 30 now, in Mark Chapter 6. The Apostles had returned from their journey, and Jesus tells them, look, we need a break. Let’s go off by ourselves, he says in verse 31. 31 “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” And then it says, He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
Verse 32, 32 So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. They needed some rest, man. They’ve been “in it.” And so, they’re looking forward to some rest. And, as usual, the people recognize Jesus, recognize him when they’re leaving. So, this huge crowd makes their way along the north end of the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and they’re waiting for them when they get to the area of Bethsaida, where they were going to take a break. They were just going to have some R&R.
But Jesus sees the crowd, in verse 34, and he has compassion on them. And so, he begins teaching them. And you’ve got to know the Disciples are like, oh man! We just need some rest. We came here to rest. And so, in Mark 6, verse 35, it’s late in the afternoon and the disciples came to him and said, “Jesus, come on. This is a remote place, we came for rest (that’s in between the lines), it’s already getting late. Can you just send these people away so they can go get something to eat?” And then Jesus says to them, “You feed them.” Hey – you feed them. And you’ve got to see the Disciples; they’ve been so overwhelmed. They hadn’t even had time to eat. They needed rest. They just needed a place to go and be alone for a minute. And now, Jesus is saying you feed these people.
And so the Disciples respond 37 . . .“We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” verse 37 says. And ultimately, Jesus takes the five loaves of bread and two fish. The Disciples have to get everyone to sit down in groups, and then Jesus blesses the bread, and he feeds five thousand men and their families with the loaves and fish. But who did the work? Who distributed the food? Five thousand! Five thousand free lunches! We just came to get some rest, Jesus!
So, the Disciples distribute this miraculous lunch to five thousand men and their families. And then, look at verse 45. Immediately… 45 Immediately after this, Jesus insisted . . . He made his disciples get back into the boat . . . Are you kidding me, Jesus? There’s been no rest. And this whole rest thing just blew apart, and we had to feed five thousand people, or more, because of their families too, and immediately now we have to get back in the boat? And we have to head back across the lake to Bethsaida, and you’re not even coming with us? Verse 46 says that Jesus went up to a hill, went up on a mountain by himself to pray.
And so, now the Disciples are worn out. They’re worn out physically. They’re worn out emotionally. They’re worn out spiritually. Things didn’t go the way they needed them to go for their rest time. And now, they’re in the middle of the lake, the Sea of Galilee. Verse 47 says, 47 . . . Jesus was alone on the land.
Verse 48, He saw them . . . Don’t miss verse 48. Jesus saw them. 48 He saw them . . . He saw them from a place of authority; he’s on a high mountain, or as high as they get around there (which isn’t very high), but he’s up on a mountain, and he sees them. Listen, can I tell you, please? Jesus sees YOU. Jesus sees you. He saw them. He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard . . . And verse 47 says, Late that night the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone . . . he saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and the waves. And again, you know, again, they’re thinking they’re going to die. And they’ve got to be frustrated, after all of this, now they’re in the middle of the Sea of Galilee in a storm. And they’re rowing hard, and they’re struggling.
And then, verse 48 says . . . About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. He was walking on the storm. Listen to me, please. This is the point of this whole devotion – right here. Jesus was using the storm as pavement for his feet to reach the Disciples in their deep, deep time of need. Please, hear that. Jesus will use the storm in your life as pavement for his feet to reach you in a way that he could not reach you any other way.
And so, verse 49 says, and they see him walking on the water, they cried out in terror, thinking he was a ghost, which makes them, you know, kind of like us. 50 They were all terrified when they saw him. But Jesus spoke to them. . . . Jesus speaks to them. In the midst of the storm, when they’re at the very end of their rope, he speaks to them at once. And he says, “Don’t be afraid,” “Fear not!” he said. “Take courage, I am here!” In the midst of your storm, Jesus sees you. He might have even orchestrated the events to get you there for his good purpose. And then he says, “Don’t be afraid, I AM is here.” The Great I AM is here! ALL that Jesus IS. The Eternally Existing God, the Great I AM, is here.
Verse 51 says, 51 Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed,
Oh, you guys. We’ve got to know that Jesus is at work in our lives. And he’s at work in the storms in our lives. He’s using them as pavement for his feet to reach us in a way that leaves an impact, that will make a mark, that will put us in a place where we truly trust him, and we believe that he’s at work for our good. He needs us to get to that place, and he’ll use the storms in our lives to get us there.
I want you to just take that, and you may want to read that in Mark Chapter 6, that whole section from the second half of verse 6 all the way down to verse 51. You know, read through all of that and kind of picture how your circumstances build one on top of another until Jesus reaches you in the middle of the storm.
And then, journal that. In your Alone With God journal, the steps are Meditate, Apply, and Respond. And each of those steps has little one-line instructions.
Under Meditate, it says, “What is God’s Word saying? What are the spiritual principles here?”
Under Apply, it says, “How does this apply to my life personally and specifically, today?”
Under Respond (that’s the home run), What action? How will I respond? “What action will I take in response to this time with the Lord?”
Then, write your prayer to close under the Pray section.
That’s the Alone With God journal way.
Let me pray for us. Lord Jesus, we recognize that you’re at work in our lives for your glory and for our good. And Lord, sometimes you allow us to get into these storms of life. Sometimes, you even orchestrate events to bring us to the end of ourselves, the end of our own strength, Lord. That’s what you’re doing to the Disciples here. And Lord, sometimes you do that in our lives for our good so that we can meet you in the storm like we cannot meet you in any other way. And so, Lord, we say today, use the storm in our life as pavement for your feet to reach us, Lord. Use this storm to reach us in a way that our faith in you would grow, that our trust in you would grow and that our lives with you would be changed by knowing you better. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for being such an awesome Savior that you use all things, Lord, to reach us, to reveal yourself to us, and you do it all in love. We thank you for it. In your name, we pray, Jesus, amen.
Listen, guys, in yesterday’s devotion, I encourage you to go to the Word By Mail website at wordbymail.com. Or, I would really encourage you to download the Word By Mail app. Go to your App store, download the Word By Mail app. Then, tap the little search icon at the top of the homepage of the app and search the word “storm” (singular). Storm. Search the word storm, and you’re going to find five full-length messages on the storms of life. If you do that on the website, and you click under teaching, then you click in the search box and type Storm, you’ll get those same five messages and a couple of podcasts. And listen, these messages you can watch on any device or on Roku or Apple TV—Word By Mail channel. You can listen to them, and you can read them. So, if you’re in a place where you need to know that Jesus is using the storm in your life to reach you, go to wordbymail.com under Teaching, search the word Storm, or download the Word By Mail app, hit the search icon, and type the word Storm and spend more time with God on this.
Text us. You can text us and ask, “What? What was he saying about storms?” You can text us for any reason at (877) 790-WORD. (877) 790-9673.
And we will see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.
Listen, today’s kind of a part two devotional journal guide. Yesterday we started talking about storms and how Jesus uses storms in our lives. And yesterday, we really focused on Jesus challenging the Disciples and challenging us to answer the question where is your faith in the storm?
Well, today, we’re going to just jump ahead a little bit, and we’re going to look at another storm. And we’re going to see that Jesus uses storms in our lives to teach us some of the deepest spiritual truths that he needs to teach us. So. Grab your Bible, and grab your journal if you have it. You can use a blank journal, too, but for sure, grab your Bible. Open it to Mark Chapter 6.
I’ve got to set this one up for you because it’s so clear how Jesus works here. And I really pray that you see this in your life – how Jesus works.
So, here’s how it starts. In Mark Chapter 6, in verse 6 (basically), Jesus sends out the twelve Disciples on their first missionary journey. And he says, don’t take anything, don’t take any money, and go from house to house. And man, this is heavy on them. This is really a big burden for them to go out on their first big missionary journey.
And then, when they get back, it seems like right as they’re getting back, the death of John the Baptist reaches Jesus and the Disciples. And it’s a heavy, heavy thing for John the Baptist to have been killed. This is Jesus’ cousin. And so, it’s heavy on Jesus, it’s heavy on the Disciples.
And then, we’re down in verse 30 now, in Mark Chapter 6. The Apostles had returned from their journey, and Jesus tells them, look, we need a break. Let’s go off by ourselves, he says in verse 31. 31 “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” And then it says, He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
Verse 32, 32 So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. They needed some rest, man. They’ve been “in it.” And so, they’re looking forward to some rest. And, as usual, the people recognize Jesus, recognize him when they’re leaving. So, this huge crowd makes their way along the north end of the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and they’re waiting for them when they get to the area of Bethsaida, where they were going to take a break. They were just going to have some R&R.
But Jesus sees the crowd, in verse 34, and he has compassion on them. And so, he begins teaching them. And you’ve got to know the Disciples are like, oh man! We just need some rest. We came here to rest. And so, in Mark 6, verse 35, it’s late in the afternoon and the disciples came to him and said, “Jesus, come on. This is a remote place, we came for rest (that’s in between the lines), it’s already getting late. Can you just send these people away so they can go get something to eat?” And then Jesus says to them, “You feed them.” Hey – you feed them. And you’ve got to see the Disciples; they’ve been so overwhelmed. They hadn’t even had time to eat. They needed rest. They just needed a place to go and be alone for a minute. And now, Jesus is saying you feed these people.
And so the Disciples respond 37 . . .“We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” verse 37 says. And ultimately, Jesus takes the five loaves of bread and two fish. The Disciples have to get everyone to sit down in groups, and then Jesus blesses the bread, and he feeds five thousand men and their families with the loaves and fish. But who did the work? Who distributed the food? Five thousand! Five thousand free lunches! We just came to get some rest, Jesus!
So, the Disciples distribute this miraculous lunch to five thousand men and their families. And then, look at verse 45. Immediately… 45 Immediately after this, Jesus insisted . . . He made his disciples get back into the boat . . . Are you kidding me, Jesus? There’s been no rest. And this whole rest thing just blew apart, and we had to feed five thousand people, or more, because of their families too, and immediately now we have to get back in the boat? And we have to head back across the lake to Bethsaida, and you’re not even coming with us? Verse 46 says that Jesus went up to a hill, went up on a mountain by himself to pray.
And so, now the Disciples are worn out. They’re worn out physically. They’re worn out emotionally. They’re worn out spiritually. Things didn’t go the way they needed them to go for their rest time. And now, they’re in the middle of the lake, the Sea of Galilee. Verse 47 says, 47 . . . Jesus was alone on the land.
Verse 48, He saw them . . . Don’t miss verse 48. Jesus saw them. 48 He saw them . . . He saw them from a place of authority; he’s on a high mountain, or as high as they get around there (which isn’t very high), but he’s up on a mountain, and he sees them. Listen, can I tell you, please? Jesus sees YOU. Jesus sees you. He saw them. He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard . . . And verse 47 says, Late that night the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone . . . he saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and the waves. And again, you know, again, they’re thinking they’re going to die. And they’ve got to be frustrated, after all of this, now they’re in the middle of the Sea of Galilee in a storm. And they’re rowing hard, and they’re struggling.
And then, verse 48 says . . . About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. He was walking on the storm. Listen to me, please. This is the point of this whole devotion – right here. Jesus was using the storm as pavement for his feet to reach the Disciples in their deep, deep time of need. Please, hear that. Jesus will use the storm in your life as pavement for his feet to reach you in a way that he could not reach you any other way.
And so, verse 49 says, and they see him walking on the water, they cried out in terror, thinking he was a ghost, which makes them, you know, kind of like us. 50 They were all terrified when they saw him. But Jesus spoke to them. . . . Jesus speaks to them. In the midst of the storm, when they’re at the very end of their rope, he speaks to them at once. And he says, “Don’t be afraid,” “Fear not!” he said. “Take courage, I am here!” In the midst of your storm, Jesus sees you. He might have even orchestrated the events to get you there for his good purpose. And then he says, “Don’t be afraid, I AM is here.” The Great I AM is here! ALL that Jesus IS. The Eternally Existing God, the Great I AM, is here.
Verse 51 says, 51 Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed,
Oh, you guys. We’ve got to know that Jesus is at work in our lives. And he’s at work in the storms in our lives. He’s using them as pavement for his feet to reach us in a way that leaves an impact, that will make a mark, that will put us in a place where we truly trust him, and we believe that he’s at work for our good. He needs us to get to that place, and he’ll use the storms in our lives to get us there.
I want you to just take that, and you may want to read that in Mark Chapter 6, that whole section from the second half of verse 6 all the way down to verse 51. You know, read through all of that and kind of picture how your circumstances build one on top of another until Jesus reaches you in the middle of the storm.
And then, journal that. In your Alone With God journal, the steps are Meditate, Apply, and Respond. And each of those steps has little one-line instructions.
Under Meditate, it says, “What is God’s Word saying? What are the spiritual principles here?”
Under Apply, it says, “How does this apply to my life personally and specifically, today?”
Under Respond (that’s the home run), What action? How will I respond? “What action will I take in response to this time with the Lord?”
Then, write your prayer to close under the Pray section.
That’s the Alone With God journal way.
Let me pray for us. Lord Jesus, we recognize that you’re at work in our lives for your glory and for our good. And Lord, sometimes you allow us to get into these storms of life. Sometimes, you even orchestrate events to bring us to the end of ourselves, the end of our own strength, Lord. That’s what you’re doing to the Disciples here. And Lord, sometimes you do that in our lives for our good so that we can meet you in the storm like we cannot meet you in any other way. And so, Lord, we say today, use the storm in our life as pavement for your feet to reach us, Lord. Use this storm to reach us in a way that our faith in you would grow, that our trust in you would grow and that our lives with you would be changed by knowing you better. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for being such an awesome Savior that you use all things, Lord, to reach us, to reveal yourself to us, and you do it all in love. We thank you for it. In your name, we pray, Jesus, amen.
Listen, guys, in yesterday’s devotion, I encourage you to go to the Word By Mail website at wordbymail.com. Or, I would really encourage you to download the Word By Mail app. Go to your App store, download the Word By Mail app. Then, tap the little search icon at the top of the homepage of the app and search the word “storm” (singular). Storm. Search the word storm, and you’re going to find five full-length messages on the storms of life. If you do that on the website, and you click under teaching, then you click in the search box and type Storm, you’ll get those same five messages and a couple of podcasts. And listen, these messages you can watch on any device or on Roku or Apple TV—Word By Mail channel. You can listen to them, and you can read them. So, if you’re in a place where you need to know that Jesus is using the storm in your life to reach you, go to wordbymail.com under Teaching, search the word Storm, or download the Word By Mail app, hit the search icon, and type the word Storm and spend more time with God on this.
Text us. You can text us and ask, “What? What was he saying about storms?” You can text us for any reason at (877) 790-WORD. (877) 790-9673.
And we will see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.
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