I had a cat named Lindsey when I was growing up. I found her and her sister in an ad in the paper. They were free. I was delighted. I had never had cats. When I took them for their shots, the vet informed me that they had ringworm on their ears. My mama was not pleased. Apparently, ringworm is very contagious. I was the only one who would touch those kittens those first few weeks we had them, while I treated them.
They healed nicely and I didn’t catch it, but I forged a nice bond with Lindsey. When the dogs would run her up a tree, I could call to her and she would jump to me. That’s fairly rare with cats. They aren’t very trusting souls, but she trusted me and I always delivered her.
I was reminded of Lindsey’s trust, when I recently read the boat story in Mark, where Jesus was asleep and a squall came up. Waves were breaking over the boat and it was nearly swamped. The disciples were panicked and woke him up and asked him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” “He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, ‘Quiet!’ ‘Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.” Mark 4:39
I’ve always liked that story. It shows the complete power of Jesus, but the next verse makes me squirm a little. “He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Mark 4:40
Ouch! He saved them immediately, when they called on him, but he wasn’t very soothing at this point. They had seen him heal lepers, a paralyzed man, a man with a shriveled arm and countless others. They had seen him cast out demons and make people whole again. But, they still struggled with their faith.
Maybe they compartmentalized their faith. Maybe they had come to accept that Jesus could heal people, but they didn’t understand that the Son of God, could control nature as well. I think we may be guilty of that today too.
We pray about some things. We trust Jesus with some parts of our lives, but not all the parts. Maybe we happily pray for physical healing, but don’t trust Him to heal our hearts. Maybe we don’t believe that He can help us with forgiveness. Maybe we think that’s just too hard for Him. Maybe we don’t believe that He can heal emotional pain from our past. We just keep carrying it because we believe it’s just too hard for Him.
Nothing is impossible with God. We are told that more than once in the Bible, but God won’t wrestle our pain or anger or whatever burden we are carrying around, from us. We have to willingly give it to Him and trust. We have to stop being afraid and doubting that there’s anything out of God’s grasp to heal, or mend, or redeem.
Perhaps we need to be less like those men in the boat that evening and more like my cat. Maybe we should jump into the arms of Jesus and know that He will catch us, no matter what. That’s true faith.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂