Most of us become very religious in a time of crisis. If you're like me, it is when you are afraid, hurt, lost or lonely that you tend to pray.

Like the disciples in today's Gospel reading, I have cried out to God when I was on a boat, in a storm in the Pacific Ocean. I have also cried out to God when a loved one is sick, and when I have felt betrayed or rejected. I've cried out to God when I was broke and unemployed, and when I felt so depressed I didn't want to get out of bed.

"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" That is what the disciples cry to Jesus in today's Gospel reading. A storm is raging around them. Water is roaring into the boat. Jesus is, astonishingly, asleep.

It is said that the one thing you should never do in a crisis is panic. Well, the disciples are well into panic mode by the time Jesus wakes up and calmly silences the storm. No doubt they are bailing furiously, and doing all that they can to keep the boat afloat. "Why are you terrified?" Jesus asks. "Do you not yet have faith?"

It is not very comforting, in a way, that Jesus sleeps through the storm, and then criticizes the disciples for their fear. After all, they did come to him and asked for help. But maybe he sensed that there was more fear in their "prayer" than faith. That's certainly true for me when I am in desperation mode before God. My prayers are often a spiritual form of worrying, of panicking. I frantically pursue the outcome that I want, and try and force God to comply with my wishes.

Jesus suggests that the proper response when we are afraid is to have faith that he will take care of us. He doesn't promise that we will never experience storms in our lives, whether external disasters or internal anguish. He does promise that he will take care of us.

We panic when we are not in control of our lives. Of course, the reality is that we are never fully in control of our lives. All our work, all our money, all our resources cannot generate happiness, peace of mind, health or well-being.

In fact, much of our efforts to protect ourselves for harm are driven by the same fear that engulfs us in times of crisis. We fear pain. We fear suffering. We fear loss. We work like crazy to prevent it all. When crises come, we beg for relief.

"Do you not yet have faith?" Apparently, for me anyway, the answer is no. I rarely am able to trust that God is in control when I feel like I am out of control. When my job is at risk, or my health is at risk, or a relationship is at risk, I am usually certain that all is lost if I don't get the outcome I desire. As a friend of mine likes to say "I've been unemployed and homeless in my mind four or five times this week!" This is the power of our fearful imaginations.

"Who, then, is this that even the wind and sea obey?" The disciples are stunned into recognizing that Jesus is far more powerful than they imagined. We stand to gain the same new awareness if we allow Jesus to bring us through the storms in our own lives, rather than beg him to sail around them.

If we are able to trust that God is in control, and relinquish our own agendas for salvation, we just might find that he is not asleep but calmly taking us where we belong.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.