Good Morning All,
Have you ever had an experience in life
that left you completely flabbergasted?
So completely stunned you didn’t know how to react. The internet is full of short videos showing
small children walking through traffic and being just missed by surprised
motorist. Maybe you watched some video of the recent hurricane. I have had a
few “did you see that?” moments but not any that would rise to the level of
what our disciples in today’s verse saw.
Our verse is the end of one of the more
familiar stories in the Bible. Jesus is
asleep in the back of the boat when a huge storm comes up. The disciples, for the most part, are
professional fishermen; they knew this lake like most of you farmers know your
own land. They had experienced storms
and weathered them out. For this storm
to put fear into them must have been a whopper of a storm.
They cried out to Jesus, “Teacher, don’t
you care if we die?” He stood up and
told the wind and the waves to be still; when it occurred, they were filled
with great fear. You wonder what they
were expecting. Did they just want Jesus
to pray or to be as afraid as they were?
Did they want and expect him to stop the wind? If this is what they wanted, if this is what
they prayed for; why were they so amazed that it happened? And why are we?
During this phase of the disciples’ lives,
they were trying to follow Jesus based on their own understanding of who God is
and who the Messiah would be. At this
time, they didn’t fully understand who Jesus really was. It is not until after the resurrection and
Pentecost when “their minds were opened” and they “received the Holy Spirit”
that they understood what was going on and gave them the courage to live their
lives in complete devotion to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus. They received faith.
We have that same faith. We have the Spirit dwelling richly in
us. We can call to Jesus at any time;
asking him to save us from whatever storm in our life we are facing. When he does this, why are we surprised? I think the sad truth is most Christians
don’t really think prayer works. Most
Christians view prayer as a good luck charm, or some type of desperate “last
chance, I’ve tried everything else” action.
Going to God should be the first thing not the last thing we do. We shouldn’t go to God with the attitude of
“Well God, I’ve done all I can do, I guess the rest is up to you.” This is a prayer that lacks faith.
We need to go to God with all the
confidence that a child goes to their parent for all good gifts. God is faithful to His Word. God has promised to hear and answer the
faithful prayer; we don’t need to be surprised.
Dear
Father, all too often we are slow to trust you and to take you at your
word. We place our limitations on your grace,
and we end up losing your blessings in the end.
We are truly sorry for our lack of faith. Continue to mold us into the disciples that
you want us to be. In Jesus’ precious
name we pray, amen.
God’s
Peace,
Pastor
Bret
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