Who is in your boat?
Whenever anxiety starts to creep into my life, my wife has a way of helping me redirect my focus.
She always loves to pause and ask me: “who is in your boat?”
A little bit of context will help us unpack this subtle reminder about the mental monsters we create in our life when we are faced with challenges that back us into the metaphorical corner.
We attend St Mark Parish in Argyle, Tx.
Over the last 5 years of being there, a message that is constantly reinforced from our pastor, Fr. George involves the biblical story of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
If you have never read this passage, it is located in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 8:23-27.
In it, the disciples are out to sea and a great tempest comes upon them.
Meanwhile, Christ is asleep in the boat without a care in the world.
They wake him out of fear and beg him to save them.
He chastises them with “Oh ye of little faith” and rebukes the storm.
The story ends with the disciples in shock and awe.
The moral of this, at least for me, is every time a struggle comes forward that seeks to disrupt my peace, I am training myself to reflect “who is in your boat?”
Are you focused on Christ and his everlasting peace of “fear not.”
Or
Are you focused on the other disciples losing their mind at the size of the storm.
Fortunately, every single time I ask myself this question, I am blessed with the opportunity to pass this on to my patients and ask them the same one.
Who is in their boat to help them navigate their dis-ease presentation?
If I am being honest, most of them let some really interesting people occupy space in their boat AND these people are incredibly useful at promoting distraction and producing the metaphorical tempest in their lives.
They show up to my office with their own version of the 12 Apostles accompanying them through their storm.
I have personally observed:
The enabler
The control freak.
The social media influencer
The “it runs in our family”
The you just have to learn to live with it
The drug dealer
The doubter
The “my insurance doesn’t cover that”
The “real doctors have an MD”
The “I don’t have time for that”
The “best friend”
And then there is you, the 12th apostle.
When this reflection kicks in for me, I always stop and reflect on who I am listening to in my current storm.
It is in this moment that the subtle reminder kicks in that there is a 13th member in this boat, Christ.
The eternal Son of God, Hope embodied.
While everyone around you is ramping up the storm, He is calmly asleep in the boat as if it is a breezy Sunday afternoon.
When the storm is around you, you have a choice.
You can continue to amplify the anxiety OR you can look to Christ.
To be honest, it is incredibly difficult to drown out the 11.
They will do everything they can in their power to keep you distracted from peace.
But as you and I both know, the subtle reminder of “who is in your boat” leads to one answer and the only answer that matters.
Philippians 4:13 has that answer.
In the meantime, it is 4:45AM on Monday morning and I am contemplating the story of the Storm on the Sea asking myself “who is in my boat?” Maybe you can allocate some time today to do the same.
