Are you having a difficult day in reading the New Testament? I have somewhat odd experience – either I have so much to ponder that I cannot get through (sort of “I have not noticed this before”) OR I have read it so many time in the past that I read it so fast (sort of “I have read it before”). Are you having the similar experience?

I had a tough day — I am in the process of restricting my law practice to immigration law only from general practice. It is so much stuff I have to clean (I almost feel like retiring from this work) and I still got so much to do regular work on top of such clean-up. In the middle of all, this verse really hits me hard, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

When we get tired and scared, why do we take everything personally? They could have said “Teacher, save us” or “Teacher, help us” or “Teacher, we are scared”. Oh, no…. They said “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” We say this a lot – either “I don’t care” when we care so much and “I care” when we don’t care much at all. But, the word, care, makes the whole situation so personally. It is not what Jesus could or would do, but Jesus does not care enough to save them. As I am finishing my rough day (yes, at 8 p.m., I am still working in my office tonight), I realized that I took a lot of stuff today personally. When people missed my appointment by accident, I was thinking – “don’t you care that I am so busy?”; when I was running around to meet three people at the same time in different locations, I was thinking “don’t you care for me enough to make a note that I am triple-booked?” When I was waiting for a client to get in, no one called me to let me know that the client was in fact waiting for me downstairs – I was thinking “really! No one cared enough to let me know!”

The truth was ,in fact, that we were just busy today, especially me with multiple appointments and commitments I had to complete within unreasonable timeframe, even for myself. So when people could not read my mind (how could they?), I reacted “don’t you care enough for me?” – when in fact, I could have thought “Wow! I am tired and I got so much – I need to take a break and decide my priority again”.

So, do you take things/people personally when you are tired and overwhelmed? I did, I do and I will, but I will continuously ask for God’s grace in my life to realize my error and ask for forgiveness to many people, especially those at my unreasonable reaction today.

I hope you had a better day than mine!