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[The disciples] had rowed three or four miles when suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water toward the boat. They were terrified, but he called out to them, “Don’t be afraid. I am here!” Then they were eager to let him in the boat, and immediately they arrived at their destination!

John 6:19-21

Following the amazing display of power when Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand with a few barley loaves and fish, the disciples got into their boat to cross the lake while Jesus went into the hills to pray. And it was then, after a series of very public incidents culminating with the breaking of bread for the crowd, that Jesus gave his disciples a private lesson.

They were making the short, six-mile trip across the lake, but the trip was harder than it should have been because the weather was against them. While they were straining at the oars and fighting the wind, Jesus was alone on the mountain praying, from where he had a view of his disciples’ dilemma. Mark says, “He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves” (Mark 6:48).

Jesus’ unexpected appearance and his unheard-of mode of travel—making the surface of the water his solid ground—elicited a reaction of strong fear, even terror, in the disciples.

Once they recognized him, they took him into the boat. At that very moment, the wind died down, and “immediately they arrived at their destination!” (John 6:21). What the disciples were learning is that the presence of Jesus is the destination. He is our safe haven. When we receive him into our experience, everything else is put in perspective.

Jesus, remind me that I don’t have to row against the wind and strain at the oars. All I need to do is let you into the boat.

There is an experience of the love of God which, when it comes upon us, and enfolds us, and bathes us, and warms us, is so utterly new that we can hardly identify it with the old phrase, God is love. Can this be the love of God, this burning, tender, wooing, wounding pain of love that pierces the marrow of my bones and burns out old loves and ambitions—God experienced is a vast surprise.

Thomas R. Kelly(1893–1941), Quaker educator