Which way to the road to recovery?

Matthew 8: 18, 23-37; Mark 4: 35-41; Luke 8: 22-25

Mark 4: 38b

‘…‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’…’

How is the spiritual inventory going? You’ve not been doing it? Well, today is the day to restart. If there is one thing today’s passage tells us it’s this; we can be surrounded by the very best of teaching and teachers but unless we apply these teachings to ourselves and put them into practice we remain in the same old desperate, anxiety ridden lives. The Road to Recovery principle 4 reads:  ‘Openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust. “Happy are the pure in heart.” (Matthew 5:8)’.  We have to examine our life practices and our response to life in the light of the teachings of Jesus of the Nazareth sermon. This process of self-assessment reveals our deep rooted commitments; it reveals our habitual behaviours based on what we really believe and therefore reveals the reasons for our behaviour.  This process reveals our faulty values, attitudes and beliefs that lead to faulty responses to life and its challenges. We have been created to respond to God and each other in love through peace-making practices. But something gets in the way, that is, we meet our needs our own way, the Bible calls it Sin. We need to become part of a New Creation so that we can respond by meeting our needs God’s way. Perhaps for the first time you are beginning to experience this transformation or indeed you may be getting back to living the way you know you should?  All people and especially disciples, who experience the absence of Jesus in life, that is, as an active guide in our life, we feel that in times of trouble that we are perishing. Today’s reading tells the story of a journey that Jesus initiated to the other side of a lake. A storm gets up and the disciples in the boat, in the middle of a storm panic; they did not feel they were going to the other side of the lake. They felt as if they were going to the bottom! They told Jesus how they felt: they come clean with Jesus; ‘…‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’…’ These are the people who have seen the miracles, the healings, heard the teachings and were in the very presence of Jesus and yet they feel they are perishing. Jesus calms the storm not because they were going to the bottom; if Jesus says we are going to the other side of the lake that is where we are going! He calms the storm to remind them who He is; He reveals to them His identity again and this calms the situation. Perhaps the reason we stop doing our inventory, identifying our needs and the way God wants us to meet our needs is because we get overwhelmed by feelings that we are perishing and we panic. We forget who Jesus is. Jesus has made us promises; He promises to journey with us our whole life long, to be our example and guide, to never leave us or forsake us. If we will participate with Him in living out His Kingdom teachings He promises to transform our panic and anxiety into assurance and faithful living; even in the storms of life. The disciples got one crucial thing RIGHT!  They admitted to themselves, to Jesus and to each other that things were not right between them. Restoration of relationships followed the confession. The transforming practice revealed in the story is in times of trouble we can panic, meet our needs our own way and end up feeling that we are perishing. We relapse! However, we can come to Jesus and admit we have a tendency to meet our needs our own way and recommit to put into practice His teachings. He will reveal Himself again to us as the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer that He is. Anyone for the Road to Recovery?

See you at the Fountain Lesmahagow tonight at 7