Jan 20, 2022
Do you trust Jesus? What does trust look like for a marketplace believer these days?
Welcome to the Follower of One podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry. Thanks for joining me again today.
As you may have heard I'm struggling and wrestling with the word "trust." That's my word for 2022. And I'm studying passages about that. And today I want to read Mark chapter four, verses 37 through 40, and we're going to talk about verse 40.
"And there arose a fierce gale of wind and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus himself was in the stern, asleep on a cushion; and they woke him and said to him 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?' And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Hush be still.' And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?'"
That's from the New American Standard Bible. What are we afraid of? You know, I want to say that I trust God. And I want to live my life in such a way that I trust God. But when I get into a contentious work situation or when I have an irate customer, when something's going wrong at work, I can get pretty wound up.
My stomach can turn and I can start calculating all the time. I've spent many years gritting my teeth and doing things like that. And that's an outward sign of me not trusting Jesus. I think I don't trust him near way as much as I'd like to believe that I do. I don't want to make lightly the situation the disciples were in.
So they're in this boat on the sea with Jesus, and there arose a fierce gale of wind. The waves are breaking over the boat so much that the boat is filling with water. Jesus is asleep. He must've been really tired and he must've been, very calm about what was going on. I can't imagine, but I want to. I can't imagine the peace that Jesus sensed knowing that God wouldn't let anything happen.
How can you relax in a circumstance like that? How can you rest and sleep? They had to wake him up. They had to go get him and say, "Do you not care that we are perishing?" I think that's where they made the mistake. I'd like to believe that I would wake Jesus up so that he would save us or I would wake Jesus up so that he would make the storm stop.
But they were clearly afraid. Once Jesus stopped the storm, they were left with their fear. It's interesting to me because I don't think I trust Jesus to clean up the messes in my life. I schedule my time and I plan my life so that I have the energy to clean up the messes that happen in my life. What does it take for me to wait on Jesus and trust him?
What about you? What's it going to take for us to trust him in our work environments today? So I want to challenge us, ask God to show you where you need to trust him more. And let's live like we're relaxed people watching God do his thing in our workplace. We can enjoy watching God do his thing in our workplace when we trust him. It's harder to enjoy seeing him do that when we're worried and fretting and anxious all the time. And so I want to encourage you punch in, remind God about the problem. Let's wake Jesus up, but let's not be afraid. If I wake him up, I don't have to do it out of fear. I can wake him up and say, "Hey, you see this mess we're in, don't you?"
I want to trust Jesus more today and I'm willing to ask him. Why not you, would you trust him more today? Let's ask him to show us how we can show up at work. And I want to encourage you too, as you're hearing this, the next Marketplace Mission Trip just begins in a few days.
Go to https://community.followerofone.org and join us on a two week experiment where we actively trust Jesus and take our faith into our workplace every day. You will not end up looking like a jerk to your coworkers. Trust me. But you will integrate your faith into your work more. Check out the Marketplace Mission Trip at https://community.Followerofone.org.
Thanks very much.