Let’s be honest — most of us got into following Jesus because someone told us about the promises. The peace. The purpose. The blessing. And all of that is absolutely true. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us missed something that Jesus said pretty clearly right from the start.
In Luke 9, Jesus doesn’t bury this in the fine print. He puts it front and center: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Here’s the thing about that verse — when we hear “take up your cross” today, we picture jewelry. A necklace, maybe. Something we put on in the morning and tuck under our shirt. But the people who heard Jesus say those words didn’t picture anything like that. To them, a cross meant one thing: a death sentence. It was reserved for the worst of the worst — criminals, rebels. When Jesus said “take up your cross,” he was saying, “You have to be willing to do whatever it takes, even lay down your life if necessary.”
He wasn’t hiding that part. It’s not hidden in the terms and conditions that nobody reads. It’s the headline.
So what does that mean for us when life gets hard? It means that crisis isn’t a sign that you did something wrong or that God has abandoned you. It’s actually part of the journey. Crisis reveals our commitment to the call.
Here are three ways crisis can show up — and what the disciples teach us about how to face each one.
1. When Crisis Hits Your Circumstances
Mark chapter 4 gives us one of the most vivid stories in the Gospels. Jesus and the disciples get in a boat and head out on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus gives the command: “Let’s go to the other side.” Simple enough.
Then a massive storm rolls in out of nowhere.
And here’s the thing that gets me — these disciples weren’t doing anything wrong. They were doing exactly what Jesus told them to do. They got in the boat. They followed his instruction. And they ended up in the middle of a terrifying storm anyway.
Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep on a cushion at the back of the boat.
The disciples wake him up, panicked: “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?!” Jesus gets up, speaks to the wind and the waves — “Peace, be still” — and the storm stops. Completely. Not a gradual calm, but an immediate, total silence.
And then he turns to them and says, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
After the storm clears, the disciples look at each other and ask, “Who is this that even the wind and sea obey him?” Their fear didn’t go away — it just shifted. They went from being afraid of the storm to being in awe of the person in the boat with them.
That’s the lesson. When everything around you feels chaotic, when you find yourself in a storm you didn’t ask for and didn’t cause, the question isn’t whether you’ll be afraid. It’s okay to be afraid. You can even be a little mad about it — Jesus can handle that. The real question is: do you trust the person who’s in the boat with you?
He knew the storm was coming. He led you there. And he knows what’s on the other side. The things that terrify us don’t terrify him. He speaks and the storm has to listen.
If you’re in the middle of overwhelming circumstances right now — things piling on from every direction, wondering how you’ll get your head above water — the invitation is to trust that he’s still in the boat. He hasn’t left. He sees what’s going on, and he knows the way through.
2. When Crisis Hits Your Faith
Sometimes the crisis isn’t about what’s happening around you. Sometimes it’s about what Jesus is asking of you — and you’re just not sure you want to follow anymore.
This is what John 6 is all about. Jesus had just fed somewhere between 5,000 and 12,000 people with a kid’s lunch. Miracle. Overflow. Leftovers for days. The crowd loved it. They came back the next day looking for more.
But instead of feeding them again, Jesus gave them a spiritual lesson. He said things like, “I am the bread of life” and “If you eat my body and drink my blood, you will never thirst again.” Understandably, people were unsettled by this. It conflicted with their dietary laws, their traditions, everything they’d been taught.
The text says that many of his disciples — not just casual followers, but people who had been with him — said, “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” And then they left. They unfollowed, to put it in modern terms.
Notice something important here: they weren’t confused by what Jesus said. They understood it. They just didn’t like it. It bumped up against things they valued. Their comfort. Their habits. Their way of doing life.
Sound familiar? There are things Jesus asks of us that we hear clearly. We’re not confused. We just don’t want to do them. He asks us to move toward something difficult, to walk away from something comfortable, to surrender something we’ve been holding onto. And in that moment, a crisis of competing values shows up.
Here’s what’s remarkable though: when the crowd walked away, Jesus didn’t chase them down. He didn’t negotiate. He didn’t soften the message. He watched them go and then turned to the twelve and said, “Do you want to leave too?”
And Peter — impulsive, passionate, imperfect Peter — said something that stopped everything: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
That’s the turning point. Not “I understand everything you’re saying.” Not “This feels comfortable.” Just: Where else would I go?
A crisis like this reveals something honest about why we follow Jesus. Is it for convenience? For comfort? For the good feelings when life is going well? Or do we follow because we’ve come to genuinely believe that he is who he says he is — and that means trusting him even when the path is uncomfortable?
God is persistent. He’ll keep calling, keep prompting, keep bringing something back to your attention if it’s something he’s serious about. But he won’t force you. He invites you. The question is whether you’ll say yes.
3. When Crisis Hits Your Failure
The third kind of crisis might be the most personal of all: the kind you cause yourself.
Peter’s most famous low moment comes in Luke 22. Just hours before, at the Last Supper, Peter had declared with full conviction: “Jesus, I will die for you. I will never leave you.” He meant it. He genuinely believed it.
Jesus looked at him and said, “Before the rooster crows tonight, you will deny me three times.”
Peter argued. And then, hours later, standing in the courtyard while Jesus was being held nearby, a servant girl pointed at him and said, “Hey, weren’t you with him?” Peter denied it. Someone else recognized him. He denied it again. A third person pressed him. And Peter, according to John’s account, cursed at them. Three denials. Three public failures. And then the rooster crowed.
Luke includes one heartbreaking detail: “The Lord turned and looked at Peter.”
That moment. The eye contact. Peter remembered what Jesus had said, and he went out and wept bitterly.
But here’s what I want you to notice about that look. It doesn’t say Jesus was appalled. It doesn’t say he was surprised. Because he wasn’t. He already knew. He had called Peter to be a leader of his movement knowing full well that this moment was coming — and he called him anyway.
Failure is not the end of the story.
There’s a scene at the end of the book of John — on the same beach where Peter was first called to follow Jesus — where Jesus comes to him after the resurrection. He doesn’t shame him. He asks three questions: “Peter, do you love me?” One question for every denial. And three times, he calls Peter back: “Then feed my sheep.”
Peter went on to become one of the most influential people in all of Christian history.
Here’s what this means for you and me: shame is not from the Lord. Shame is what the enemy uses to convince you that your failure has become your identity — that what you did is now who you are. The enemy wants you to believe that because he knows if you believe it, you’ll keep your distance from God. And that distance is the real danger.
The failure itself doesn’t cancel your calling. But if you let the distance remain, it might.
God’s forgiveness, as the Psalms describe it, is as far as the east is from the west. The arms stretched wide on the cross are the posture of a Father saying, “Will you just come back to me?” The door is open. It’s always open. If you’re even trying to close the gap between you and God — if you’re showing up, even feeling unworthy — that matters. That’s already a step.
The Question Is Always the Same
Every kind of crisis ultimately asks the same question: will you still follow?
When the storm is raging and life feels out of control — will you trust him?
When what he’s asking of you conflicts with everything you’d planned for yourself — will you surrender?
When you’ve failed in a way that feels unforgivable — will you come back to him instead of staying in the distance?
Crisis doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It doesn’t cancel your calling. It’s actually one of the main ways following Jesus gets real. It reveals what we’re made of, what we actually believe, and whether our faith goes deeper than comfort and convenience.
The disciples faced all three kinds of crisis. And the ones who stayed — the ones who pressed through, who said “where else would we go?” and who came back after their failures — they’re the ones God used to change the world.
Your story doesn’t have to end at the crisis. In fact, for a lot of people, that’s exactly where it begins.