7.30.24
We all know what it feels like to face the storms of life. Something comes along and messes with our orderly little world, and everything begins to fall apart. And the more precious and crucial that thing is to our life, the greater the trauma that ensues.
But how are we supposed to react to such challenging times? Most of us simply react on instinct. And it’s in the instinctual response of the sailors here that we learn the wrong way to react to the storms of life. Because what they do is: they get religious. It’s ironic that most Christians would say that this is a good response. It’s what you should do. But our story is showing us here that this instinct within us all is absolutely wrong.
Most people - when the really hard times come along - figure that it’s time to start going to church - it’s time to start praying and making serious promises to God. But what lies beneath this? It’s the bargaining of the self-centered heart that says, “If my actions are making God mad at me, what good things do I need to start doing so that he will give me what I really want?” And of course, what we most want is not God - it’s something else. We merely need to somehow get “through” him to get there. But our God is not a bargainer, he won’t be “used” like that, and so this never works.
You can see this with the sailors here. As they begin to panic, each turns to his own god. It was not uncommon in their day for the people to see a god behind every natural force in the world. There were gods of farming, and gods of sailing. There were gods of sex and gods to bless your family. And nobody can focus on all the gods, so you focus on one and give your devotion to him/her. But none of these gods are “working” here. Because the storm only grows worse.
And so they wake up this prophet of yet another God and ask him to call on his. Essentially they’re saying, “We tried our gods, and they didn’t work. Can you try yours?” And of course, we do the same things today. We serve the gods of money, hoping they can make us content. We serve the gods of family, hoping we can find affirmation in our kids. We serve the gods of relational success, in hopes that we can be loved or at least admired.
But none of these gods work. But think about why. They never “work” because they sink in the boat with us. If your god is your family and your kids fall apart, you all sink together. If your god is your financial success, and the money dries up, you will sink along with it. In other words, because all these other gods are susceptible to storms themselves, they cannot sustain us in ours. Because they sink right alongside us.
And of course, the religious person typically says, “Sure, none of those gods can work - so turn to the true God.” And it’s easy for religious people to turn from sex, drugs and rock-and-roll toward God and ask, “Will he now give me what I most want? Will he make these storms go away?” Because it’s easy to turn from the religion of our “stuff” to the religion of “God”, but still not actually find him. These sailors are trying to appease this ferocious God. But they don’t love him. They don’t honor him. They’re afraid of him.
Religious people who try to placate God by trying harder to live a better life are doing the same thing. They’re merely trying to make bargains with God that manipulate him into giving them the life they really want. And the whole point of this section is to show us that there’s a huge difference between loving God and merely fearing him. The church is filled with people who don’t know the difference between religious people and Christians. But this passage is here to show us that religion is not the way to deal with our fears. It merely opens you to even deeper ones (am I living well enough…am I obeying the right ways…etc). The essential prayer of the religious person is, “God, I will do anything you want, if only you’ll give me this.” But it’s ironic. Because it proves that you’re unwilling to give to God the ONLY thing he really wants - which is your heart - with no conditions.
Pay attention to your heart today. Are you loving God out of the sheer joy of grace? Or are you trying to manipulate him with your religious good works?