“Do you not care?”

It is disheartening to fervently pray, earnestly interceding for something — and then see the circumstances around you appear completely counter to how you’d hoped. This past week there were many such situations, and as I continued in prayer and searched the Scriptures, God brought me to Mark 4.

To the storm.

You know the story, right? The crowds are basically mobbing Jesus because His healing and delivering power is so incredible that throngs of people are pressing in around him at all times. So he tells his disciples to get in the boat, and they’d sail across the Sea of Galilee to the other side. But during the night, while Jesus is sound asleep, the storm comes, the waves crash, and the boat begins filling with water.

The disciples cry out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Jesus wakes, rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Suddenly all is calm, and the disciples are amazed.

But the wind isn’t the only thing Jesus rebukes. He rebukes His disciples as well: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Part of me has wondered what they did wrong. What showed Jesus that they had no faith? They woke Jesus up, didn’t they? They knew that He was the answer, isn’t that pretty good faith? Isn’t that what we do in faith?

But listen to their words: “Do you not care?!”

There’s the unbelief. 

Notice that their doubt is not a doubt of Jesus’ power but of His goodness.

Don’t you care?! 

They don’t say, “Aren’t you able to fix this?!”

They say, “Do you not care?!”

And isn’t that what we say? When we don’t see the answer, when we’re confused and disheartened and don’t see the desired result right away, aren’t we so tempted to grumble to God in our hearts:

“Do You not care?!” 

I believe the entire attack of the enemy, his entire scheme and only real aim is to get us to question the goodness of God. He knows there’s no use making us doubt His power. It’s obvious. Ummm…Jesus rose from the dead — I think the power issue is settled.

But if he can get us to doubt the goodness of God, he wins. If he can erode our trust, our rest in His love and special care and provision, if we can think,

“There’s God, asleep on the job, clearly He must not care.” 

Then he wins.

But he won’t win. Because we are not ignorant of his schemes and we know that affirming and declaring the goodness of God will always bring the victory. No matter what the storm is like, or how “asleep” He looks, we express our faith by not only declaring His power, but His goodness as well.

For the LORD is good,

his steadfast love endures forever,

and His faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:5

{May His goodness carry you this weekend. Thanks for reading.}