Stormy Waters

35 On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.”

36 Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him.

37 And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.

38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Don’t you just love this story? It is so out of our realm of experience. The storm they encountered out on the sea was obviously a big storm because waves were crashing over the boat and filling it with water. There were gale force winds. That is not the time most of us want to be out on the ocean. First of all, Jesus was just sleeping through it. That is amazing enough but then when his disciples awoke him, he actually rebuked them for their lack of faith. He was disappointed that they were afraid. Now how many of us would also have been afraid if we were in that kind of storm while on the sea? And yet Jesus tells us that we should not be afraid nor should his disciples have been. We are supposed to counter frightening circumstances with faith instead of fear. Isn’t that remarkable? Jesus did not even seem to think that the storm required a lot of faith to overcome. He accused his disciples of having no faith. You would think that hanging out with Jesus would cause his disciples to have great faith but they were even more afraid of him than they were the storm. They began to learn what he could do but they were not learning yet that it was his faith in the father that was the source of it all. Jesus expected the disciples to take care of that storm using the same faith that was available to him. What does that say for us? 

We must all learn to utilize that same faith that has been given to us through the son and the Holy Spirit. First by reading and meditating on this story and others like it, we can begin to become familiar with the level of faith that is available and even expected of us. We cannot begin to walk in this level of faith until we accept the idea that this kind of faith is possible to us. You cannot have what you cannot believe for and you cannot believe for that which you cannot fathom. Therefore, the first thing for us to do is to begin to wrap our minds around the concept of an enlightened faith walk. That is a harder task than it may first sound like because there are so many people who just cannot believe past the end of their noses. They won’t want you believing big either so they will attempt to discourage you. My advice is to follow Jesus example rather than theirs. I just think that you would rather walk like he did than anyone else you know. Set your eyes on him as your example and begin to tell yourself that all things are possible to those who believe.