Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this season of the podcast where we get to spend today with Jesus. So good morning. I've got the Gospel of Luke open in front of me, and I'm in Luke chapter 8.
We will be there in a moment. And the title of the podcast this morning is Swamped. and the reality is in this season we feel swamped we really do i've talked to so many people i've talked to so many of you i know how i'm feeling and we're feeling swamped there are so many waves that are crashing into our life you know whatever the external wave may be that's crashing into your life that's going to create an internal thought or feeling of anxiety or unrest or fear or turmoil or loneliness or whatever it might be and what i'm feeling right now i'll just go first what i'm feeling right now is out of control i'm feeling completely and totally out of control and i hate that feeling? What are you feeling as a result of all the waves that are crashing into your life as a result of feeling swamped right now?
And you know, into the midst of this chaos, the gospel speaks. Luke chapter eight, beginning in verse 22, Jesus calms the storm. One day, Jesus says to his disciples, let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they got into a boat and they set out.
As they sailed, Jesus fell asleep and a squall or a big storm came down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. The disciples woke him saying, master, master, We're going to drown. And he got up and he rebuked the wind and the raging waters. The storms subsided and all was calm Where is your faith He asked his disciples And in fear and amazement they said to one another who is this He commands even the wind and the water And they obey him Famous story Matthew Mark, and Luke recount this story.
It was a central story in the minds of the disciples, probably because they had had this experience with Jesus. And we can see in their experience, our experience. It says in the text that they were swamped. Waves were crashing into the boat.
It says they were in great danger, wave after wave after wave. And we feel that whatever's crashing into our life right now, we feel out of control or full of anxiety or fear or turmoil or loneliness or whatever it is that's going on inside of you. And what I want to begin to do right now is practice what Ignatius of Loyola, a great Catholic saint in the Middle Ages, he called the practice of imagine, where we pick a story in the life of Jesus and we just put ourselves in that story. We feel, we see, we experience what was happening in that story.
So let's do that just for a moment. And in the midst of being swamped, the disciples in the text, they call out, master, master, they cry out. And the reality is they needed to cry out. We need to cry out in the midst of what we're experiencing, in the midst of what we're feeling.
They were learning to be dependent upon their master. And the truth is to be fully human, to be at rest, to be whole people, to be at peace, we must learn to be dependent upon God, dependent upon our master Jesus in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of being swamped. Now, I'm not saying that God caused this squall. It seems pretty clear that the enemy was attacking Jesus and the disciples in the midst of this squall, but God certainly uses every squall, every storm, everything that's crashing into our lives.
And I don't know about you, but for me, if I not feeling out of control as a result of wave after wave crashing into my life I don learn to consistently call out to Jesus you know in vulnerability and say you know master master help And I thinking that that the same for you as well But I'm not feeling out of control. If I'm not, you know, feeling that I'm at the end of my rope, I don't cry out for help. What just came to my mind is that some of the greatest, most relational, most vulnerable moments that I have had with my three children is when they were at the end of their rope and they were feeling swamped. And they cried out, dad, dad, help.
in some way, shape, or form. And the reality is in the story, Jesus is the calm. He is in control. He rebuked the wind and the waves and they were calm.
Jesus calmed their storm. Now we might think, well, gosh, Jesus calmed their storm, but why won't he calm my storm right now? And what we find out through the text is that Jesus did not calm the storm immediately. This story, and I think one of the reasons why Matthew, Mark, and Luke all recount this story is because they went through this storm with Jesus and he got them to the other side.
Yes, he calmed the storm, but it looks like he didn't do it immediately. And so their experience, and of course, when we look back on this time, we'll have the same experience. God was faithful. God did it.
He went through the storm with us and he got us to the other side. And that's exactly what Jesus means when he says, where's your faith? Which means, guys, learn to trust me. You know, learn to rest in me, learn to be okay, learn to live dependent.
And I think the reality is maybe, just maybe we can't learn faith and trust and rest and dependency on Jesus, our master, unless we are experiencing being swamped. You know, whether it's, as we talked about earlier, or money or chaos at home, you know, or whatever that external thing is that creates anxiety, unrest, fear, turmoil. And this is this point hitting me right now I don know that we can learn faith and trust without storms And so Jesus brings us through these storms these times of being swamped So we learn what true rest true wholeness and true peace and true dependency is Leaning on and having faith in Jesus. I love where the story ends.
Who is this? The disciples say, you know, who is this? And that's a great question. They were discovering who Jesus is and how amazing he is.
And if he's the column of the storm. And we are still discovering that. That's what we've been discovering for the last 222 days. We're discovering who he is.
Let's continue to discover that. Let's spend today with Jesus. Let's this morning, just right now, as I stopped talking, Let's start practicing Ignatius of Loyola's practice of imagine. Put yourself in the story.
Wave after wave, crashing into our lives. All these external things. But let's pay attention to what's going on internally. What are we feeling?
And let's cry out to Jesus this morning. Help! Master, help! I feel out of control or whatever you want to cry out to help for.
And we're going to experience God intervening. And he's going to grow our faith. And the ultimate question is, who is this? Who is this Jesus?
Who is this? And then let's just continue a conversation with him throughout the day. Because the reality is waves may continue to crash into our lives. We may continue for a little while to be swamped.
But he is the storm, and he will get us to the other side. We'll talk tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Daily Disciple Podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today.
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