Daily Reflection Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Last year Tuesday of the thirteenth week in ordinary time was July 4th. I remember this because it was my regular Tuesday to write, and I wrote about this Gospel. Jesus is sleeping, the disciples are panicked, and the ending is the same, Jesus calms the storm. Somethings in life are constant and never changing. This Gospel will always end with Jesus calming the storm and the disciples being amazed. Jesus is the constant! He is always there riding out the storms we face in our lives. Not every storm in our lives is weather related. We are always going to face storms. They may come in the form of illness, job loss, divorce or the death of a loved one. How we deal with the storms are the lessons we learn in life. What isn't constant is how we react. Do we panic and call out to Jesus out of fear, or do we pray with the eyes of faith that it will all be okay?

My father-in-law passed away eight weeks ago. I prayed for God to take him quickly and peacefully, I did not want to see him suffer. I can say with certainty that would not have been my prayer in the past. He had been sick in the past and I always prayed for healing, but something was different this time and I knew to pray for what was best for him not for what I wanted.

Sometime when we fall asleep in our faith, we find ourselves praying with a bartering system. We pray for what we want promising something to God in return. Or maybe we panic, like the disciples did, and cry out to God thinking he is asleep and not paying attention to us and we blame God for the storm. God is not creating the storms in our life he is riding them out with us. Next time you find yourself being tossed around in life's storms pray for the grace and peace to ride it out, knowing that Jesus is always awake and by your side.