Don't you care?
Asleep in the storm
The squall comes down hard on the lake, and the boat is filling faster than they can bail. These are fishermen; they know this water, and they are afraid. And Jesus is asleep. In the stern, on a cushion, through the wind and the spray and the panic, He sleeps. So they wake Him with the accusation that has risen in every flooded heart since: Teacher, don't you care that we are dying?
It is the cry of the disoriented soul exactly — not clean theology but the raw suspicion that God is indifferent, asleep at the moment you are going under. From inside the storm it does not feel like He is testing your faith. It feels like He does not care. But look where He is. Not safe on the shore, not watching from a distance — in the boat, taking on the same water. He was never away from the danger; He was in it with them. And He stands and speaks three words to the howling chaos as though to a child: Peace, be still. The wind drops. The sea goes flat. The God who seemed not to care was within arm's reach the whole time, and the storm that terrified them knew His voice.
“Teacher, don't you care that we are dying?”
— The disciples, in the storm — Mark 4:38 (WEB)
“He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be still. The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
This is Disorientation speaking its sharpest accusation — that God has fallen asleep and does not care while you go under. The phase tempts you to read His silence as His absence. It asks you to look again at where Christ actually is: not on the shore, but in the boat, in the storm, nearer to your crisis than your fear can feel.
In your storm the accusation comes fast and feels like proof: if He cared, He would be doing something, and He is not, so He must not care. The cruelest thing about a storm is not the storm. The cruelest thing is not the storm itself but the silence that seems to come with it, the sense that you are bailing alone while the One who could help has His back turned. A caring God would not sleep through this. But the gospel slips a detail past the panic. Jesus was in the boat.
Whatever else was true in that storm, He had not gone to the shore and left them; He was taking on the same water, riding the same swells. His apparent sleep was never His absence. This is the quiet correction the disoriented heart needs: seeming asleep and being gone are not the same thing. He may feel utterly indifferent to your crisis while being nearer to it than anyone, and the chaos drowning you still answers to a voice that can say, peace, be still. And the chaos that is drowning you is not, as it appears, beyond all control.
The Church in a storm can be certain its Lord has dozed off at the helm, the boat filling, the wind shrieking, heaven seemingly indifferent as the faith is battered and the waters rise across the age. The accusation forms almost on its own: does He not care that we are going under? The gospel detail the Body must not miss is that Christ was in the boat the whole time, never safe on some distant shore while His people bailed alone. His apparent sleep was never His absence. A Church convinced its Lord is present even when He seems asleep can keep bailing without despair, trusting that the chaos which terrifies it has not slipped past His authority, and still falls silent at His word.
What cannot be shaken is the presence of Christ in the boat and the authority of His voice over the chaos. The wind and the sea are not the steady things; they rise and rage and fall. He is the steady thing, asleep or awake, and when every other solid thing is sliding underwater, He has not gone anywhere.
- Where am I bailing in a storm, convinced that God is asleep and does not care?
- Can I believe Christ is in the boat with me and not safe on some distant shore?
- What changes if the chaos overwhelming me still answers to His voice?
Lord, the boat is filling and You have seemed asleep, and the accusation has risen in me: don't You care? Forgive the lie underneath it. You were in the boat all along. Speak Your peace over my chaos, and where it does not yet still, let me trust that You have not gone. Amen.