Suggested reading: Mark chapter 5 verse 1 – 20

In our previous meditation we met disciples who lacked faith as to whether Jesus cared for them, when they were in the midst of a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee. He had invited them to join Him on a journey to the other side of the sea but it now seemed as if they would perish in the storm. They should never have doubted Him, even during the most testing experiences of their lives and neither should we! He has promised us, if we put our faith in Him, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5. True to His word, they reached ‘the other side’, verse 1. They then discovered that He had taken them there to prove to them that He cared, not only about the disciples, but about all men and women.

Immediately He got out of the boat, He was met by people who were in desperate need of meeting One who not only cared about them but could also save them out of their desperate circumstances. Their faith in Jesus must have put to shame the disciples lack of it during the previous night! The first person to meet Jesus was a demoniac, who suffered from a total lack of care by others. He lived in the mountains and in caves. All others wanted to do was to tame him by binding him with chains. However, they failed in their attempts to achieve this. Some of the disciples might have questioned why they had ‘crossed to the other side’ to meet a man in such a hopeless and helpless condition! However, they had already marvelled at Jesus’ power to command the wind and sea to obey Him. Their amazement grew even more as they saw Him cast out the man’s demons and left him ‘sitting and clothed and in his right mind’ – a completely changed man, who wanted to follow Him!

How thankful we ought to be that Jesus cared enough for us to ‘cross over to the other side’, as it were, by leaving heaven for earth, to die on the cross to save us from sin and Satan’s power!