In this episode of the Iron Saints Podcast, host Dan Willis delivers a daily devotional aimed primarily at men, walking listeners through Luke 8:22—the story of Jesus calming a storm while in a boat with his disciples. Willis reads the passage from the ESV, draws parallels between the disciples’ panic and modern believers’ struggles with life’s “storms,” and emphasizes the importance of faith, prayer, and reliance on Scripture. He encourages listeners to “wake” Jesus in moments of crisis, assuring them that Christ’s response is not rebuke but a call to trust. The episode includes a heartfelt prayer for listeners facing trials, gratitude for the global, diverse community of listeners, and a request for prayer submissions and reviews. Willis also hints at future Saturday episodes that may shift from scriptural exposition to profiles of historical church figures, indicating a possible format expansion. Throughout, the tone is conversational, encouraging, and pastoral, aiming to strengthen faith and foster community engagement.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints Podcast with your host, Dan Willis.
Welcome back, saints. It's a new day, another dive into scripture. We're going to continue our journey through Luke today. For those of you that may be new to the podcast, welcome, welcome, welcome. Uh, we dive into a section of scripture every day. Uh, right now we're working through the book of Luke. Uh, The podcast is targeted largely to men, but if you happen to not be a man, that's fine. I'm sure diving into God's word will be there for you. But the podcast is largely tailored to men looking to dive deeper into the word. So welcome. Really, really thrilled, guys, with everything that's been going on in the first week since being back. A lot of encouragement, a lot of listeners that I didn't think would be here. So that's a huge blessing. Thank you for that. As always, guys, I appreciate the time that you guys are taking to offer feedback and leave reviews. Wherever you may be listening to this, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, wherever you may be. So thank you for that as well. Without further ado though, guys, I do want to get down to this. So let's get going. Yesterday we finished tackling the last in a set of parables. Today we're gonna move on. Jesus had spoken about his mother and brothers. He had spoken about We had spoken about what it looks like to actually walk the talk, how important that was. Today we're going to move further on Luke as he departs from the crowds and he does something pretty remarkable. So I'm really excited to get going into this, guys. As always, take your time right now, grab your Bible. I always encourage you guys to have your Bible if you can. I understand that some of you can't do that, but if you can grab your Bible, please do that. If you don't have your Bible, rest assured I always read the passage out loud. I'll I'll be reading from the ESV. I'm sure everybody has their own preference on translation or paraphrase, but for me, uh, the ESV is the one that I like to read from. So without further ado, here we are, Luke chapter 8, verse 22. One day he got into a boat with his disciples and he said to them, let us go across to the other side of the lake. So they set out, and as they sailed, he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, Master, Master, we're perishing! And he awoke and rebuked the wind and raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, Where is your faith? And they were afraid. They marveled, saying to one another, Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the waters, and they obey him? How amazing is this? And the symbolism is apparent, I hope, to most of you men out there that are reading this. But the notion of us being on a journey with Christ, just as the apostles were, us being with him, us doing the things that we do. These guys weren't in a fierce battle. These guys weren't in the middle of the Sanhedrin. These guys weren't preaching in a temple. These guys were in a boat. This is day-to-day stuff. This could be you driving down the road, right? It's regular stuff here. This is regular men, nothing special about them other than Jesus has chosen them. And they're hanging out in a boat and things get out of control. And I know for me, I know it definitely resonates, that idea of, well, I'm just going through the motions. Jesus is asleep and I'm going through the motions and I'm in control and I'm doing what I think is best. And oh, look, a storm. Well, that's okay. I'll keep going. It's not so bad. Oh, okay. There's some waves and some wind. Oh, that's not great. Things aren't looking as good as they once did. That's problematic. What am I supposed to do there? And I continue to go and I wait and I wait and I wait and I wait and the problem gets worse, worse, worse, worse. And then eventually, eventually comes that moment where you, you, you, you give Jesus the nudge, right? You wake him up and go, This one's beyond me. This is more than I can manage here, Lord. I'm going to need a hand. And the rebuke that he gives them is interesting because I don't feel like he is being overly chastising. He's just having a moment of fully God, fully man where This doesn't seem a problem to him. He knows that God has a purpose and a plan. He knows he's not going to die in this boat drowning in waves and wind. He knows that there's something coming. And he also knows that being fully God, fully man, he doesn't need to fear this and can just tell the storm to go away. And it's amazing to me how many times and how many testimonies I've heard from men of faith where when things get Impossible. The debts build up. Can't find a job. Looks like a divorce. Kids are gone. The world hits hard. Whatever it may be, they turn to Christ. They wake him up and say, "God, the storm—it's gonna—it's just gonna consume me." And he turns around and just says, "Have faith." And he stops the storm in his own way. You don't know how it worked. You don't know why it worked. You just know that it worked. You know that God had the power. You turned to him. You prayed to him. You went to his word. You followed his way. And bam, it's there. So I want to give this to you guys as an encouragement. Friday is not quite the end of the week because I'm going to be here tomorrow with another episode. But For many, it's the end of the week. It's the end of a long week. And this is the day that a lot of folks feel the storm. So if that's you today, if you're, if you're a man of faith that's walking through his days and you're feeling like you're in the middle of a storm right now, one, have faith. Don't be afraid to wake him up. He never rebuked them for waking him up. It wasn't like, oh, you interrupted my nap. He rebuked them for the faith. So have faith, know that Christ is there. Turn to the word, pray. It's an amazing thing that he can do, something that causes you to marvel. That's if you're struggling. If you're not struggling, if you're in a really, really good place right now, but you seem distant in the faith, be cautious. You could be just like the disciples that were on the boat pre-storm. So don't, don't lose that faith because things are going well. And that's a trap that I've fallen into quite often. Yeah. And you almost become proud and arrogant of all the work that you've done and how well you're doing. If you're somebody that's come out of this though, and you're clinging hard to the word, you're praying, you're gathering in fellowship with a community, and you're out there doing what the Lord said, and you're walking in faith, marvel. Just marvel at how amazing it is, the changes he's made in your life, how he's been there for you. It's really something unique and special and remarkable. All right, as always, guys, I am going to pray for you guys. For those that have prayer requests, please, wherever you are listening, feel free to leave it in a comment. I receive all the comments on all the platforms. So if you have a comment that you would like to leave, please go ahead. At the bottom of every episode's description, there's also social media channels. So if you want to drop a message onto the Facebook or Twitter or Instagram profile, I'll get that there as well. I am greatly appreciative of the opportunity to pray for men all over the world. The community is an amazing community that is truly diverse. When I open up the podcast stats and see people from Africa, Asia, Russia, Australia, Europe, everywhere, literally everywhere, there's not, there's not one continent in the world where people aren't listening. That is so amazing to me that God can bring a community that wide into such a small place. Um, but let's pray. Um, and I'll send you guys off into your weekend. Lord, thank you so much that you can tell us in James, our trials are pure joy. And you can do that because you know that we're going to be going through them with you. You know that there's going to be storms. You never promise there isn't. In fact, you promise the opposite. You promise us we are going to face storms. There will be waves. There will be wind. There will be fear. But there will also be faith. I pray for those men that need that measure of faith today, Lord, that they would see and marvel at what you are capable of. I pray for the men that have come through a trial, Lord, and I thank you for the blessing of your, your strength, your power, your authority. For those that are in a moment of providence, Lord, moment of blessing, pray that they would be able to quell their pride and their arrogance as to who's in charge. And that they would rely on you, that they wouldn't let you sleep in a boat. They would instead have you with them walking. Bless the men that are listening to the podcast, their families, their communities, and the churches that they belong to. Lord, in your name we pray. That's it for today, guys. Have a fantastic evening. And as always, if you guys are enjoying these podcasts, if there's something that is bringing value to your daily devotion, I would love it if you would take a few moments and consider leaving a review wherever you. Might be listening. It's a great way to help the podcast reach more ears, reach more men, and grow the community. So thank you for that. Have an amazing weekend. I will be back again tomorrow, guys, with another episode on Saturday. I am playing around with some ideas of whether to continue in the scriptures on Saturdays or maybe present a historical church figure. I thought that might be just, you know, a fun kind of end of the week where there's so many amazing men of faith throughout history that often Don't get some light shed on them. So I thought maybe I would do that, but playing around with that idea still—it may or may not come. But we'll find out tomorrow. Take it easy, guys.
Thank you for listening to the Iron Saints Podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all until next time.
