“But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion” (Mark 4:38).

After visiting my in-laws in Yazoo City, Mississippi for the day, we drove home to Greenwood down Highway 49, a rural two-lane road that travels through the flat and sparsely populated Mississippi Delta.

My wife and I were up front with our three children on the back row of the minivan. Soon, it began to rain with such ferocity, I thought we may get blown off the road. Although I could barely make out the yellow lines separating the lanes, we pressed on in the darkness.

At one point, I remember looking in the rear-view mirror to check on my children, knowing they must be terrified.

But they were sound asleep! How could they sleep through such a ferocious storm? You know why. They trusted their daddy. That is what children do.

In Mark 4, Jesus astonished his disciples by sleeping through a storm in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Of course, the storm on the lake wasn’t the most ferocious storm Jesus would face. That greater storm had wind he could have silenced but didn’t. Instead, he allowed himself to perish in our place, thus protecting us from the winds of justice our sins deserve.

Because Jesus faced that storm for us—the storm of the cross—we can trust him in every storm we face.