Most of you are familiar with the account of Jesus boarding a boat with His disciples, only to go to the back of the ship and take a nap. After He fell asleep, a storm suddenly arose and His friends woke Him up in a panic, certain they were going to die. Rather than getting hysterical, the Lord calmed the storm and rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith. While there are many lessons to be learned from this story, one of the most poignant was depicted by the dutch artist Rembrandt in his work, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” in 1633. Hannah and I have a print of it hanging on our kitchen wall and every morning as I sip my coffee, I stare at it and try to imagine who is who and doing what. In the depiction, there are several people working hard to try to save the ship, and there’s another, who some say is Peter, but who I actually believe is Judas Iscariot. Unaware of the rope around his own neck, he perceives that he’s at the orb and in control. In short, my interpretation of the painting is that in a storm, there are two kinds of people: those who try to control their outcomes by taking charge, and those who look to the Lord and remain calm.

Friend, whenever you’re going through a storm, your salvation is with Jesus alone! You will attain serenity as a disciple, not by trying to fix everything, throwing up your hands, or getting angry, but by giving it all to God. At the end of the day, it’s better to be on a boat with Jesus in a storm than on the shore by yourself, because with Him in bad weather is way better than without Him under sunny skies!