You can learn a lot about someone by watching what rattles them.

A flat tire. A harsh comment. A misplaced airpod. For most of us, panic comes easy. But Jesus was strangely unshakable.

He stood quiet before a violent crowd. He kept His cool when His friends failed Him. Even in the middle of a life-threatening storm, He fell asleep on a boat while grown men shouted for their lives.

Through betrayal, injustice, exhaustion, and excruciating pain, Jesus kept His composure.

Until one moment.

On the cross, just before His last breath, He cried out in a way we’d never seen before. Not calmly. Not confidently. It was a desperate cry.

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

That’s the moment He unraveled. And it wasn’t because of the nails.

He could handle suffering. He couldn’t handle silence.

When you read through the Gospels, you get the sense that Jesus had an inner strength most people don’t. He didn’t avoid pain. He walked straight into it. He didn’t lash out when wronged. He forgave as it happened. He didn’t hide from the weight of His mission. He carried it fully.

But He carried it with Someone.

Jesus lived in unbroken communion with His Father. That was the source of His strength. He withdrew to pray often, not because it was a spiritual box to check, but because it was home. The connection wasn’t occasional. It was constant.

Until the cross.

At the moment when Jesus bore the full weight of human sin, that connection was interrupted. The Father didn’t speak. The warmth of the presence Jesus had always known vanished. And that’s when Jesus panicked. Not from the pain. Not from the crowd. Not even from death.

He panicked when He couldn’t feel the Father’s nearness.

We call it stress. Scripture calls it separation.

Most of us wouldn’t say we’re afraid of being far from God. We just say we’re “busy.” We’re tired. Distracted. Burnt out. But what if what we call stress is really just the soul’s reaction to disconnection?

We weren’t made to live apart from God. That’s not just theology, it’s biology. The body knows. The mind knows. Even if we don’t name it, something deep inside us senses when we’ve gone too long without real communion.

That creeping anxiety. The restlessness. The fatigue that sleep can’t fix.

It’s not always about our job, or our schedule, or the people around us. Sometimes it’s about the distance we’ve grown comfortable with. Jesus shows us what intimacy with the Father looks like by what happened when He lost it. The silence didn’t just bother Him but it crushed Him.

Which is why it’s strange that so many of us live with that same silence and don’t even flinch.

What held Him together is what will hold us together

Jesus faced every fear we have: abandonment, betrayal, injustice, public shame, physical suffering, spiritual warfare and still stayed anchored. He did not have a divine immunity to pressure. He just stayed close to the Father.

And when that closeness was severed, even for a moment, everything broke. That’s how vital the connection was.

It still is.

We talk a lot about resilience, about managing stress, finding balance, getting stronger. But Scripture doesn’t offer a productivity hack. It offers a Person. Jesus didn’t just die to forgive your sins. He died to bring you back into presence.

So if life feels loud and your soul feels frayed, the solution might not be in doing more or trying harder. It might be in returning. Slowing down. Reconnecting with the One who steadied Jesus through every storm, and can steady you too.

He already endured the separation. There’s no reason for you to keep living in it.

The only time Jesus panicked was when He felt far from the Father. What would your life look like if closeness to God was the one thing you refused to live without?

The presence Jesus lost on the cross is the presence you're invited into evey day. Do not settle for distance. Come home.

📬 Before you go

If this spoke to you, it’s probably because you’ve felt the silence too.

Most people have. Most people are still in it.

So if this helped you see Jesus more clearly, consider sharing it with someone else.

And if you want more of this — quiet, consistent encouragement that cuts through the noise — I send one email a week. It’s simple. It’s free. And it helps keep Brightide going.

👉 Sign up below if you want in.

Thanks for reading. Keep going. Stay close.