Thoughts on Mark 4

Still reading in Mark–last couple of days in the last section of chapter four. Disciples are out in the boat, Jesus is asleep in the back and they woke him up and asked him, “Don’t you care that we are perishing”? I can really relate to their question. Lord, don’t you care that I am dying over here? How do I explain what I am doing to others and why I am not being more productive?Back to Mark 4. Don’t you care about us–we are about to die here! Well, Jesus response floors me. Why are you acting so cowardly? Where is your faith? Is it cowardly to be afraid you are about to die? I think of being a coward as running away from something. Not doing something because I am fearful of the consequences. Maybe cowardly does not quite get it. What the disciples (and I) don’t get is that when jesus is in our boat, when he is with us, we are safe and there is no need to fear the consequences. Big waves, fierce wind, feeling unproductive, unfulfilled, frustrated, angry–trust me says Jesus.

What is interesting is that after he stops the storm, be quiet, silence!, the disciples became fearful–actually, they were caused to fear (passive) with a great fear. Why? Because of the awesome display of the power of God. Then, I love what they say after that, “Who is this guy?” Even the wind and waves obey him! Two kinds of fear here–in the storm they were afraid to die, afraid they were being left alone to make it with out any help. Faced with that kind of fear, they might have done anything to get out of the situation–including insulting their teacher, “don’t you care”? But the other kind of fear is a fear of God, the kind that causes you to fall down and say, ok God, I surrender. A fear that produces reverence and awe. Yet, not a fear that causes you to think you are going to be criticized or hit if you do something wrong. It is a safe, holy kind of fear.

My Journey Begins

How shall I blog about my journey with the Spirit without writing to impress others? How do I share something so personal with the world? Is my journey even important for others to hear?

Well, after taking a class on storytelling and reading some by Frederick Buechner, my tentative answer is yes. Buechner writes in Telling Secrets “I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if if tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.”

I took my class on storytelling to become a better storyteller but I think I am learning that in story, I am becoming a better person. I have missed a lot of my own stories along the way as well as the stories of others and I don’t want to do that anymore. We will see where this goes. Thanks for listening!