Encouragement for When Life is Overwhelming

This post was published last August when my life was feeling very overwhelming. I was reminded of it tonight after my husband had directly my attention back to this passage. My hope is it will be an encouragement to you if you are feeling like life is overwhelming right now.

When Life is Overwhelming

Do you ever feel you are in over your head? As if life is unmanageable and it is unclear where and when help will come?

It can be very scary and it seems like there is no end in sight. The past few months of my life have been like this. It is hard to fully describe everything we have been encountering, but it has felt we have been assaulted from many different angles at the same time.

Although the majority of my posts are on DIY and fun projects, which I love doing. Life is not always like a project where there is a clear start, middle and end. Life is often a lot messier and very rarely do we get to see the finished project on this side of eternity. Our lives are always in progress and our circumstances will always be changing.

Situations we have been praying about for years worsen, instead of improving. New situations which we have never encountered come, more intensely and more perplexing. It is easy at times like this to question what God is doing and to become upset or discouraged at the sign of no hope.

When Life is Crazy & Scary

To be honest with you this season of my life, has been much less like a DIY project and much more like the messy, confusing stuff that life is made of. At my daughters’ Bible school this summer we sang a song which had these lyrics, “Life can be crazy, wild and amazing, I am trusting you God. You are good.” These lyrics have run through my head over and over again this summer, partly because toddlers love to repeat things, but partly because I have found them to be so true.

Life can be crazy. In Mark 4 in the Bible Jesus is in the boat with his disciples. It’s a famous scene where Jesus is asleep when the perfect storm arises. It is an extreme circumstance where the disciples become so troubled that they fear for their lives.

I don’t think these men were unaccustomed to storms. They were by trade fisherman and I am pretty sure this would not have been the first storm they had encountered in their careers. This tells me it was a mega storm and these men were being stretched far beyond what they were capable of managing or accustomed to.

When Life is a Perfect Storm

Perhaps this sounds familiar to you. A perfect storm, where you are not able to change your circumstances in your own strength. Each person’s situation is different. Perhaps its the pressures of everyday living, chronic Illness, job loss, exhaustion and difficulty with raising a family. Perhaps its someone else’s illness or troubles and you have no control over the outcomes but it deeply affects you because you love them.

It can be very difficult to understand why God allows circumstances that are so difficult. So beyond what anyone is capable of dealing with. The disciples came to Jesus in the back of the boat and found him sleeping.

Finding Peace in the Storm

I love this picture of Jesus. Sleeping. At rest, peaceful in the midst of what the disciples saw as a life threatening storm. Jesus had instructed the disciples to go to the other side, so I think He was totally aware of what was coming. Yet the disciples come to Him. Don’t you see this suffering Lord? You can stop it why do you let it continue? Don’t you care?

I like this picture because it has been a guide to me these past couple of months. At times because it feels to me, like it did to the disciples, that Jesus is sleeping. The world, and my circumstances rage on, with no end to the storm in sight. I am tempted to bring my accusation before the throne, don’t you care? At times I have done this. I can picture myself shouting at God, asking for help, but not knowing what to do. But lately this passage has encouraged me.

“Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and became perfectly calm. And He said to the, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

This passage has encouraged me because although like the disciples I have been tempted to feel like God doesn’t care, and won’t do anything. Unlike the disciples I have the full story. I can see clearly that Jesus is in complete control of this storm. That with just a word it is ended.

There is a Captain of the Storm

He is sleeping not because He doesn’t care, but because He is in complete control of it. This can cause our faith to rise. We know He is over it. It is His. When life is out of our control, it is not out of His. When it’s time for the seas to be calm, and the winds to stop they will be calm.

In many of our trials there is not always a quick resolution, illness, depression, financial troubles, relationship struggles can last a lifetime but I am thankful for this story because I can see the end. The storm stops. I can see there is a Captain to this Storm.

The [disciples] became very much afraid and said to one another, “who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

The Captain is With Us & Cares for Us

Over the past few months I have thought often of the storm and the boat and how it has continued. But I have also thought of Jesus sleeping, at rest, knowing the outcome of the storm. Even when the storm rages on, even when it feels like you are perishing, that Jesus is sleeping. The outcome is secure.

Perhaps in some small way this might encourage you if you are going through a storm. Although I do not know the nature of your storm, and who is with you in the boat, I know the Captain and that He cares for you! And truly there is no better place to be then in the boat with your Captain.

If you enjoyed this post you may also like this one on how God is always at work.

Much love to you,