Fear of what others might think of us; Fear of getting things wrong; Fear of our children getting things wrong; Fear of poverty; Fear of the bills in the letter box; Fear of opposition; Fear of illness; Fear of loneliness or alienation; Fear of running out of time; Most of us fear something, and our fears all have something in common. We fear most, the things that seem beyond our control.

In today’s gospel the disciples are out in their fishing boat when a storm whips up the waves. Water crashes into the little fishing boat threatening to sink it. Jesus sleeps on a cushion in the stern, and to the disciples he seems not to care. Can we identify with the frightened disciples? When our lives are out of control that’s when most of us pray our hardest, and when our prayers are answered we either thank God, or perhaps if we’re honest, we imagine that the problem wasn’t as bad as we thought in the first place. Only when God seems indifferent to our prayers is our faith called into real question. If God has the power to quell life’s storms why does he seem to remain indifferent? The trouble with God is that he doesn’t rush round fixing the lottery for us or texting us with our dream job. Would we really expect God to behave like this? Yet it’s at times when God seems to do nothing that we need our faith most. It’s at times like this that our faith is hardest to find.

It’s a very useful exercise to look back at life and take a second look at the seemingly insurmountable problems that we have navigated in the past. We might imagine that we have conquered our own problems single  handed. In retrospect, it is clear that God has steered us safely through the storms often in totally unexpected and surprising ways. The great comfort is that if God has helped us before, he will help us again and again. We will always have fear, it’s part of our human condition, but as Christians we have a way of transcending it. We are asked to remember Jesus’ words “Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?” We are asked to remember that even the wind and the sea obey him. If we have faith that Jesus is the master of our lives and that God has ultimate control, then we need feel no fear