Reflect on this story in your prayer. How do you feel? You are utterly helpless to do anything to change the chaos without or the terror within.

Perhaps you have a dreadful situation on your hands - in your family, or your job, or with your finances, or with a friendship. Perhaps it's something in the traumas of your past or it's the turmoil in your head. The storms are raging around or within you, and Jesus is asleep (or distant, or absent or silent).

So you identify with these friends of his. 'Lord, where are you? I'm perishing!' Sometimes - and this is important - the Lord answers immediately, but his response can be delayed, too. The Israelites in Egypt had to wait a whole generation for God to act. The Jews in exile mourned for their homeland over many generations.

He will always be there when you call: but faith requires that we allow him to save us when and how it is best for us. Hard? Yes, in the short term. But in the end, all will be well. Hang in there!

Lord, I am trusting you to be there when I need you, if not to solve my problems, at least to give me the assurance of your love. Amen.