When Life and Preaching Collide!

I know some of you remember the book by Carolyn Custis James, When Life and Beliefs Collide. This week life collided with the text for Sunday in big way. As we continue through Luke we will be looking at Luke 8:22-25, the story of Jesus calming the storm after the disciples were descended on by a sudden squall on the Sea of Galilee.

Tuesday such a squall hit the VanderMaases. It started with pain in the abdomen. Was it flu? By midnight poor Lisa was doubled over in pain and we headed to the hospital. There they discovered a bowel obstruction due to scar tissue from a decades old appendectomy. This led to surgery late Wednesday afternoon which was successful in freeing the obstruction. As I write this Friday morning, she is still in the hospital, hoping to be released. Like the disciples we have questions, (Do you not care that we are perishing? - cf Mk 4:38). While not life threatening this event was very unexpected, inconvenient and quite painful. But we are very grateful to be in the boat with Jesus who has the power to calm the storm. We are also grateful to be in the boat with his disciples (you, our CC family) who have been the hands and feet of Christ to us during this time of vulnerability.

We all can relate on some level to these sudden squalls. Over the centuries Christians have dealt with the various storms of life through the eyes of this text recognizing that our Master can calm the seas. For Lisa and me, as for all of us, our Savior’s last question is always the pertinent one, “Where is your faith?”.