Matthew 8:23-26

I love this story and I see a few things I want to point out. First of all, these boats in the Bible are not how we picture them in our modern world. They weren’t giant fishing boats. They were small and didn’t hold a ton of men.

Second, sometimes “suddenly” is a good thing and sometimes it’s not. The first suddenly in our verses wasn’t very good. A storm popped up. (Which sounds odd on a lake, but in my research, I found it to be true.) How many times in our lives have things changed suddenly?

“I want a divorce.” “You have cancer.” “You’re fired.” “Your loved one is gone.”

Totally unexpected things happen to God’s children ALL the time. The good news is, it wasn’t sudden to God! He knew it was going to happen. If you are anything like me, I’m sure you question why He knew and it happened anyway. Let’s talk about that.

God can’t over ride a human’s free will. Period. He can send angels. He can speak to someone and ask them to stop. He can send a person to talk to another person, but ultimately, the human has to make up their mind to stop. Yes, He’s ALL powerful, but He gave us free will so we would CHOOSE to love Him. Not be forced. That’s slavery, not love.

When something suddenly pops up, trust God through it. DO NOT BE AFRAID! He is with you. And just like the storm in our verses, He can suddenly calm us or whatever we are going through. No matter what it is, God will turn it around for our good because we love Him!