I’m not sure how many times I’ve read this storm at sea story from Mark but it’s a lot, and I’ve read tons of commentaries on it and I have never seen anything written about this one thing that that I now think might be important, and that is this: verse 26  And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. So here’s my question: What about the other boats? I mean, the text says that there were other boats with them, which means that the people in those boats were experiencing the storm too.  So maybe in their fear the disciples forgot about anyone but themselves.  They wanted Jesus to help them, to act toward them in a certain way.  But is God not the God of those in the other boats as well?

What I mean is this: sometimes when we get so wrapped up in how we think the story of our lives should look: the cast and setting and  plot, we forget about the other boats.  Maybe we think God’s faithfulness to us has to look a certain way when the fact is that sometimes God’s faithfulness looks like the fact that there is actually a better story than the way you want things to be.  And that better story is always a bigger story.  A story with a lot of boats other than ours.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, “Sermon on Fear, Self-Centeredness, and the Storm at Sea”