It's Saturday before Christmas.

I'm flying to Stanford University for my annual physical. The routine will include the customary, hour-long, full-body MRI. It's no hour-long, full-body massage, but an MRI is neither painful nor invasive. There's just a claustrophobic sense of being unwittingly crammed in and locked into a noisy metal tube for an hour--while holding your breath for long stretches of time.

Kind of like today's flight from Monroe, Louisiana to Dallas, Texas.

And, oh, what a flight.

The American Eagle jet rolled and shook through the tornadic storm front that would later move in to wreak havoc on my hometown and its environs. Without warning the small craft was periodically swallowed up by pockets of air and violently shoved earthward. The doors of the overhead bins broke open in unison, their contents spilling out on to the seats below. Passengers started and screamed.

But, sitting in the front seat of the plane, I kept turning my wary eyes to Teri, the toughened, white-haired flight attendant facing me from her jump seat. Teri had been flying through storms on this day since before dawn and was anxious to land in Dallas and jump a flight home to Lubbock. She was nonplussed by the storm--perhaps even a tad bored--from time to time she checked her watch, as if to say, "We're never going to get there!" My natural reaction, however, was just the opposite, as if to say: "We're never going to get there!" As long as Teri was calm, though, I figured I was safe. Now, typically, I'm a big fan of gravity and other facets of God's ordered creation. But every now and then...

The experience was an effectual reminder of the illusory nature of control.

I recalled the evening when Jesus and his apostles, after a very busy day, were making their way home in a boat across the lake to Lubbock. Or somewhere in that global vicinity. Jesus was sound asleep in the jump seat when a fierce storm threatened the boat and its occupants. The apostles were beside themselves with fear. They cried out, "Teri,"--pardon me--"Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Jesus awoke from his slumber and, first, rebuked the wind, and, second, he rebuked the apostles. "Hush, be still." On occasion--the rare occasion, my fear would allow--it's not an altogether bad thing to have our illusory structures of control ripped out from underneath us and to be reminded of the one whom the wind and sea obey. To delight to hear him speak usward, "Hush, be still." 

What do you make of the statement, "The experience was an effectual reminder of the illusory nature of control"?

Where might you be a little too confident in your ability to control your own circumstances?

Where might you need to hear Jesus speak, "Hush, be still"?

In the immediate aftermath of Jesus calming the storm, the apostles "became very much afraid" (Mark 4:41). Why, might you imagine?