Climb into the 'Jesus boat' to calm your fears

One thing I appreciate about how the world was meant to be — how God promises it will be again — is the absence of fear.

Everyone’s afraid of something. Some anxieties are less visible than others. And certain personalities, or individual thought patterns, seem more easily assaulted by fear.

It’s not fun. We can all agree on that. And neither should fear be made fun of. Whatever the unease, it’s very real for the person experiencing it.

An account found in the Bible of Jesus in the fishing boat with His disciples in a severe storm has been helpful for me when I am afraid. Such a boat, known as the “Jesus boat” — an 8-by-26 wooden vessel — was discovered in 1986 by two brothers who noticed its outline in the mud when a drought caused the water to recede in the Sea of Galilee.

This is Israel’s largest freshwater lake, about 33 miles around. Jesus and the 12 disciples were crossing this body of water in the evening when a great windstorm arose. The open boat was being swamped. It was terrifying for the men, who thought they were about to perish. Several of them fished for a living so it wasn’t as if they were not used to the sea and its moods. This was fierce.

Where was Jesus? Asleep on a cushion — deep asleep we can imagine. He had to be awakened even as waves deluged the boat. The panicked disciples cried, “Save us!” Jesus got up and spoke to the wind and the sea, “Hush, be still.”

The wind died down and it became “perfectly calm.” The men were shocked. They hadn’t been following with Jesus that long. They asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey Him?”

No matter what our fear it creates some kind of storm — its waves crash our boat. For me not long ago it was a rapid, irregular heart episode — something mostly controlled with medicine. My heart was thundering in my ribcage, making it very difficult to sleep.

That’s when I “climbed in the Jesus boat.” I reached for Jesus’ calm in the midst of the frightening sea. Visualized dwelling with Him in His peace, believing He could speak “Hush, be still” just as fresh today.