The rental car was loaded up with the leftover gluten free meals we’d been given from a week of training at the MTW home office. It had turned into a beautiful day and we were keeping our plans to see parts of downtown Atlanta we’d never taken the time to explore. Every time I left the home office that week I would get updates about this virus I’d been following for weeks because we had just spent time in Tokyo. It seemed every day this thing was coming closer and closer to our doors.
The sun was finally out..and the weather was so nice for the first time that week that on any other “normal” day my biggest concern would’ve been taking my hair into consideration when wondering whether or not to keep the windows down once we hit the interstate…
But this wasn’t an ordinary day. Our week in the office had been spent in support raising training and in meetings with the marketing department about how to improve our video ministry long-term. Each day there were rumblings of Covid-19. Handshakes became elbow bumps and friends who hadn’t seen each other in months navigated the awkward tension of whether or not to come close. By the time Friday rolled around we had altered our original plans to be away a bit longer so that we could get home, get things in order, and help our church with a live stream of our “new normal.”
With any major event in history a time comes when we talk about where we were. Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Where were you when the towers fell? I don’t know which of the many days or events or press conferences from this season will be the ones seared in my mind many years from now, but I do think the sunny drive in a rental car down I- 85 after we’d been “launched” out officially as missionaries with MTW will stand out for me. Filled to the brim with thanksgiving and excitement to go do ministry, we couldn’t really process all that had happened in our very full week at the home office that afternoon. Instead of talk about it, we decided to turn on the radio as we drove through Decatur, Kirkwood, the 4th ward, and Mid-town Atlanta.
Passersby in downtown Decatur wearing masks made me think of our time in Tokyo, where culturally it’s very normal to wear masks even when there’s not a pandemic going on.
But in Atlanta?
The President came on the radio to announce a state of emergency. He began to describe a new way of life for the first time. Terms that only 2 weeks later we are so used to hearing….ideas like drive through testing and stay-at-home orders were being described really for the first time. The crisis was here.
There is no doubt now that we’ll all know a before and an after of Covid-19. Since that drive I’ve had countless video calls, phone calls, texts - some with people I talk to weekly and others with family and friends who I don’t reach out to enough. Now, we just want to talk, “see” each other, and know that the other is okay in a time like this. One question that remains for me each day is the question of how to be at peace in this time of turbulence. How do we balance the state of emergency on the radio with the reality that the sun is out right now and I would love to have the car windows down!?
Many stories of Jesus’ way of handling suffering keep popping in my head lately. One that I can’t shake is that of the storm that comes in Matthew 4 when Jesus and the disciples are in the boat. Where is Jesus during that storm in the story? Well…. he’s sleeping.
I must admit that amidst some of the stories - people dying, losing jobs, missing celebrations - my first thought or cry has been “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38). The stories of loss, loneliness, fear, and death are some days too many to count and too much to handle. It is tempting to wonder with a watching world…
”Where is our God?”
In the very next verse of Mark 4 it says “He (Jesus) got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm..”
Did you see what Jesus did? He got up! It was the wind he rebuked. He said
“Quiet….be still!”
This makes me think of another time stillness is talked about in the bible.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10
The God of the universe in that moment tells a life threatening storm to be quiet and still. And he tells me to do the same. Why, because he is up to something.
The disciples’ response to Jesus asking about their fear and faith is to be even more afraid…..terrified even…this time of the awesome power of a God who is completely in control.
“ 41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
As we fear in this time, let us fight to be still. Maybe it’s spending more time in God’s word than you’re used to. Maybe it’s making a prayer calendar for all the needs you see swirling around you and committing to pray for these needs in a time where you can’t be present with your hands and feet to help. Maybe it’s starting something new or finding new music to sing along and worship to. What are the ways you can be still as your Savior, your Provider, your Friend, stands - in His timing - to calm the waves and storm around you?
I think all of us can agree that the disciples’ fear in that nasty storm was a totally understandable response. The key question is, what are we asking of God in this time? Are we asking for his help, or are we asking…”why don’t you care?”
As we wrestle with the new normal of Covid-19, may we see in this story and so many others that Jesus did actually calm the storm. May we watch the waves with assurance that the one who stills them is in the boat with us. May we take this opportunity to be still ourselves and know that He is God. He took on flesh to walk among lepers, among the diseased, and dying, that we might have life and have it abundantly. He will be exalted among the nations. May we wait and watch as He stands.
