The Fear

I began the day at one of my favourite schools, Riverside in Hebden Bridge, where they like a good story and are fond of setting me challenges. Today they wanted a story of travel, probably because they knew I was preparing for my travel adventure.
I considered telling the story of the Good Samaritan but wasn’t encouraged by someone travelling alone being attacked and left for dead… so moving on I fell upon the story of Jesus going for a day trip with his disciples on a boat.

The disciples get afraid because the storm starts to rage whilst Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat. Despite the fact that they are seasoned sailors they are sure that they are going to drown. They are really afraid, and what seems to make it worse is that Jesus is doing nothing. They wake him up and ask if he doesn’t care. There fear is exacerbated by God’s apparent inaction. God acts, Jesus says “Be Still!” and it’s all still.
Now God has acted they are really scared… “Who is this man?”
When God apparently answers us we are scared.
Tonight on the phone two of us involved in the regeneration project in Mytholmroyd had a panic. Having been afraid that nothing would happen we are now scared that something will happen! In this waiting time we now look close to fulfilling the vision that’s grown over the last five years of being at the heart of Mytholmroyd and it’s scary.
This morning we ended by singing an old Sunday School Action song, it made us laugh and relieved the tension of a school approaching the end of term. We laughed as we missed our words and got confused and enjoyed sharing our fears.
My phone call ended with us laughing and sharing our fears and discovering that we were not alone.
All together now
“With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm,

smile at the storm,

smile at the storm.

With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm as we go sailing home.

Sailing, sailing home

Sailing, sailing home

With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm as we go sailing home.”