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Peter and his fellow storm riders knew they were in trouble. According to Matthew 14:24-26, “But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.” About 4:00 a.m. the unspeakable happened. They spotted someone walking on the water. “‘A ghost!’ they said, crying out in terror!” They didn’t expect Jesus to come to them this way.

Neither do we. We expect to find Jesus in morning devotionals, church suppers, and meditation. We never expect to see him in a storm. But that’s where he does his finest work, for it is in storms that he has our keenest attention. He said. “Take courage; I am here” (Matthew 14:27 NLT).

Look over your shoulder friend; that’s God following you. Look into the storm friend; that’s Christ coming toward you.

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Jairus heard two voices and had to choose which one to heed. The first, from the servants in Luke 8:49, “Your daughter is dead.”  The second, from Jesus in verse 50, “Don’t be afraid.”

We need to know what Jesus will do when we entrust our kids to him. In the case of the story of Jairus, Jesus united the household (vs. 51).  “…he let only Peter, John, James, and the girl’s father and mother go inside with him.”  Next, he banished unbelief, the scoffers. “He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, ‘Little girl, arise” (vs. 54 NKJV).

God has a heart for hurting parents.  After all, God himself is a father. Keep giving your child to God, and in the right time and the right way, God will give your child back to you.

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Fear turns some parents into paranoid prison guards who monitor every minute and check the background of every friend.  A family with no breathing room suffocates a child.

On the other hand, fear can also create permissive parents.  Fearing that their child will feel too confined or fenced in, they are high on hugs and low on discipline.  They don’t realize that appropriate discipline is an expression of love.

Permissive parents.  Paranoid parents.  How can we avoid the extremes?  We pray. Jesus’ big message to moms and dads?  Bring your children to me. Pray that your children have a profound sense of place in this world and a heavenly place in the next. Parents, we can entrust our kids to Christ.

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Parenting comes loaded with fears. Dangers buzz in the background. No parent can sit still while his or her child suffers.

Luke 8 tells us Jairus couldn’t. “Then a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come home with him. His only daughter, who was about twelve years old, was dying” (Luke 8:41-42 NLT).

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Parenting comes loaded with fears. Dangers buzz in the background. No parent can sit still while his or her child suffers.

Luke 8 tells us Jairus couldn’t. “Then a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come home with him. His only daughter, who was about twelve years old, was dying” (Luke 8:41-42 NLT).

Jesus heeded his fears. He still does. Jesus heeds the concern in the parent’s heart. After all, our kids were his kids first.  Even as they are ours, they are still his. We forget that fact. Wise are the parents who regularly give their children back to God. Parents, we can be loyal advocates, stubborn intercessors. And we can take our parenting fears to Christ.

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Here are eight worry-stoppers, found in the letters of the word P-E-A-C-E-F-U-L:

Pray, first.  “Casting the whole of your care upon Him …”

Easy, now.  “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”

Act on it.  Be a doer, not a stewer.

Compile a worry list.  Keep a list of things that trouble you.  How many have turned into a reality?

Evaluate your worry categories.  Pray specifically about them.

Focus on today.  God meets daily needs daily.

Unleash a worry army.  Ask a few loved ones to pray with you and for you.

Let God be enough.  “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else

P-E-A-C-E-F-U-L. Peaceful!

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In Matthew 6:25 Jesus says, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough.”

On one occasion, Jesus had taken the disciples on a retreat.  Then came the hungry crowd.  Then the disciples issued a command to Jesus. “Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus issued an assignment, “You give them something to eat.” Do you suppose Jesus was hoping someone would count all the possibilities: “we have five loaves, two fish, and … Jesus!” (Matthew 14: 15-17 NLT)

Standing next to the disciples was the solution to their problems … but the disciples stopped their counting and worried. What about you? Are you counting your problems or are you counting on Christ?

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Do you know God’s grace? Then you can live boldly, live robustly. Nothing fosters courage like a clear grasp of grace. And nothing fosters fear like an ignorance of mercy.

May I speak candidly? If you haven’t accepted God’s forgiveness, you are doomed to fear. Only God’s grace can remove it. Have you accepted the forgiveness of Christ? If not, do so. Your prayer can be as simple as this: Dear Father, I need forgiveness. I admit that I have turned away from you. Please forgive me.  I place my soul in your hands and my trust in your grace. Through Jesus I pray, amen.

Having received God’s forgiveness, live forgiven! When Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed. (John 8:36).

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“A person can request forgiveness only so many times,” contends our common sense. If the devil can convince us that God’s grace has limited funds, we’ll draw the logical conclusion. The account is empty. No access to God.

“Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” Jesus spoke these words to a paraplegic as recorded in Matthew 9:2. Jesus was thinking about our deepest problem—sin. He was considering our deepest fear—the fear of failing God. God keeps no list of our wrongs. His love casts out fear because he casts out sin. 1 John 3:20 says,“If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (NKJV).

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Do we matter? We fear we don’t. In Luke 12:6 Jesus says, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God” (ESV). One penny would buy two sparrows. Two pennies, however, would buy five. The seller threw in the fifth for free. Society has its share of fifth sparrows: indistinct souls who feel dispensable, disposable, worth little.

It’s time to deal with the fear of not mattering, the fear of insignificance. Why does God love you so much? You are his idea. And God has only good ideas. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT).

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When fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. We worship the risk-free life. The fear-filled cannot love deeply because love is risky. They cannot give to the poor because benevolence has no guarantee of return. The fear-filled cannot dream wildly. What if their dreams fail?

No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear. In Matthew 8:26 “Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the waves, and it became completely calm.” The sea became as still as a frozen lake, and the disciples were left wondering, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (vs. 27 NCV)  What kind of man, indeed. Turning typhoon time into nap time, silencing waves with one word.

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In Matthew 8:26 Jesus asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (NKJV). That’s a good question. Sometimes fear is healthy. Fear can keep a child from running across a busy road. It’s the appropriate reaction to a burning building or a growling dog.

Fear itself is not a sin.  But it can lead to sin. If we medicate fear with angry outbursts, sullen withdrawals, or viselike control, we exclude God from the solution. Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts. It will always knock on the door.  Just don’t invite it in for dinner. The promise of Jesus is simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today.

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Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions, and, as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm—an unstirred Christ.

Matthew 8:24 says, “Jesus was sleeping.” Now there’s a scene. The disciples scream, and Jesus dreams. “Do you not care that we are perishing?” (NKJV).  Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. It unleashes a swarm of anger-stirring doubts. Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia. It makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is. Jesus takes our fears seriously. Don’t be afraid.

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In Matthew 8:26, Jesus asks his disciples, “Why are you afraid?” At first we wonder if he’s serious, but he’s dead earnest. Here is how Matthew remembered the trip: “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake so that waves covered the boat” (Matthew 8:23-24 NCV).

The story sends the not-so-subtle and not-too-popular reminder that getting on board with Christ can mean getting soaked with Christ. Disciples can expect rough seas and stout winds. Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33 NKJV). Not might, may, or could, but you will.

But what if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? This is the possibility behind Jesus’ question. Imagine your life without fear.

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Scripture says in Romans 5:20 that “the more we see our sinfulness, the more we see God’s abounding grace.” To abound is to have a surplus, an abundance, an extravagant portion.

Should the fish in the Pacific worry that it will run out of ocean?  No, why? Because the ocean abounds with water. Need the lark be anxious about finding room in the sky to fly?  No, the sky abounds with space.  So should the Christian worry that the cup of mercy will run empty?  He may. For he may not be aware of God’s abounding grace. Are you?

Are you aware that the cup God gives you overflows with mercy?  Or are you afraid your cup will run dry? Or your mistakes are too great for God’s grace? God is not a miser with his grace. Your cup may be low on cash or clout, but it is overflowing with mercy!

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In Jeremiah 32:27 God says, “I am the Lord, the God of every person on the earth, nothing is impossible for me.”

We need to hear that God is still in control. We need to hear that it’s not over until he says so. We need to hear that life’s mishaps and tragedies are not a reason to bail out. Corrie ten Boom used to say, “When the train goes through a tunnel and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not. You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through.”

The way to deal with discouragement? The cure for disappointment? Go back and read the story of God. Read it again and again. Be reminded that you aren’t the first person to weep and you aren’t the first person to be helped. Read the story and remember the story is yours!

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Jesus’ love does not depend upon what we do for him.  Not at all. In the eyes of the King, you have value simply because you are. You don’t have to look nice or perform well.  Your value is inborn. Period.

Think about that for just a minute. You’re valuable just because you exist. Not because of what you’ve done, but simply because you are. Remember that, the next time you are left bobbing in the wake of someone’s steamboat ambition. Or some trickster tries to hang a bargain basement price tag on your self-worth. Remember that, the next time someone tries to pass you off as a cheap buy.

Just think about the way Jesus honors you—and smile. I do.  Because I know, I don’t deserve a love like that. None of us do!

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Do you remember a time when as a child you got lost?  You felt the paralyzing fear of looking around and failing to see the north star of your parents’ strong presence. You were lost. These moments of lostness can leave a pit in your stomach and bring fear to your soul.

What is even worse is coming to a point in life when we realize that we’ve lost our way as a human being. We’re not sure why we are on this planet. We have no sense of our purpose.

It is in these moments we look to God, the Master Storyteller, and discover that the best way to understand our story is to listen to His. As we understand God’s story and where we fit within it, the haze begins to clear and our story begins to make sense. There’s more to your story my friend.

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As you discover your place in God’s plan, you make this wonderful discovery: you will graduate from this life into heaven. Jesus’ plan is to “gather together in one all things in Christ.” “All things” includes your body (Ephesians 1:10).

God will reunite your body with your soul and create something unlike anything you have seen. An eternal body. You will finally be healthy. You never have been. Even on the days you felt fine, you weren’t. You were a sitting duck for disease.  And what about you on your worst days? Don’t you hate disease. I’m sick of it. So is Christ.

When Christ appears, Scripture tells us, “we shall be like him (1 John 3:2). You’ll have a spiritual body, with all members cooperating toward one end. So we’re not giving up. How could we? As God’s story becomes our story, the best is yet to be.

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There are so many things we don’t know. We don’t know if the economy will dip or if our team will win. We don’t know what our spouse is thinking or how our kids will turn out. And Scripture reminds us we don’t even know “what we ought to pray for” (Romans 8:26).

But according to Paul’s words in Romans 8:28, we can be absolutely certain about four things: We know God works. He is ceaseless and tireless. God works for our ultimate good. God works for the good of those who love him. And God works in all things. Not a few things, in all things!

Puppet in the hands of fortune or fate? Not you. You are in the hands of a living, loving God. Your life a crafted narrative written by a good God who’s working for your supreme good.

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