Word for the day by Christian Education Forum
St. John’s MTC, NY
24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master,
Master, we are perishing!” And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging
waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is
your faith?”
Often times, as humans, we face
many trials and tribulations. Some of these trials may last a short period of
time while others may last months or even years. When a problem arises, it
is our natural instinct to resolve the issue, whether it may be big or small.
We expect these struggles to resolve on their own and majority of the time, we
question the presence of God during our time of trial. Most importantly, we
question our faith.
According
to the Jews, sin was the main reason as to why something bad happened. For
example, illness, financial troubles, and even misbehaved children, were all
related to sin. When we face the stormy situations in our lives, we tend to,
more times than not, question our own selves. We wonder as to how we ended up
in the situation that we are in and what we did in order to reach that
situation. We believe that we must have done something wrong in order to come
to that stormy point in time.
When
we look at the passage of St. Luke 8:22, it is written, “One day Jesus said to
his disciples, ‘Let’s go over to the other side of the lake’. So they got into
a boat and set out”. Our Lord wanted to cross the lake and the disciples simply
obeyed Him. They didn’t do anything wrong, yet they still faced great danger
ahead as the storm began. As Christians, it is important for us to understand
that following Jesus does not mean that the storms of our lives are completely
taken away but rather that Jesus himself sometimes leads us
towards the storm may be to test us or strengthen our faith.
After the storm is
calmed by Jesus, He questions the disciples as seen in verse 25, “Where is your
faith?” My friends, where exactly is our faith? Making the decision to follow
Jesus only causes storms to arise because it angers the devil. Whatever boat we
are in, the devil wishes to “swamp” our boat. The devil will use everything in
his power to distract us from the wondrous work of our Lord. Jesus knew the
storm was coming. He led the disciples towards the boat in order to strengthen
their faith. In order to escape the storms within our lives, we have to turn to
God first. Only then will we survive the storm rather than drowning due to
depending on our own methods of survival.
PRAYER
Dear Father, as we come arose the
storms in our lives, we humbly ask that we may put our faith in You to calm the
storm. Allow us to seek You first in our trials. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
“Let go, Let God (handle it all!).” - Anonymous