Where Is Your Faith?

A fierce storm came down on the lake. The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.

The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves. Suddenly the storm stopped and all was calm. Then he asked them, “Where is your faith?”

Luke 8:23-25

My husband and I once were passengers in a double-decker boat called Balmy Days off the coast of Maine. The brochure had promised a quiet ride to Monhegan Island, but our excursion was anything but that. The boat pitched and rolled, and I thought each wave that hit the boat would wash us into the frigid depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

As I held on for dear life, I recalled the cry of Jesus’ disciples: “We’re going to drown!” and quietly prayed: Jesus, you made the wind and the waves; surely you could quiet them the way you did for the disciples. I followed this persuasive line of reasoning for a few minutes, but the boat only heaved more. When I got quiet and started listening, what I heard God say to my heart surprised me—he wanted me to enjoy the ride! I focused on the horizon and gave my fears to him, and a sense of peace filled me. The waves didn’t calm down, but I realized that the Lord had done something just as amazing—he had calmed the storm in my heart and mind. The Christian life is rarely a calm ride. It’s more like an uncertain excursion with huge waves and a bumpy ride. But I’ve discovered that when God doesn’t quiet the storm that’s raging around us, he is able and willing to quiet our hearts with his peace.

Lord Jesus, thank you that inherent in the storms of life is your promise of peace. Not peace that is the absence of trouble, but peace that eclipses circumstances. Incline my heart to yours that I may experience more of your peace in every storm I face.

The night and storm look as if they would last forever; but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed; the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is peace.

George Macdonald(1824–1905), Scottish author and minister