Silence in Storms

I listened to a sermon yesterday titled, "Why Does Our Faith Fail?" It was about Peter walking on the water with Jesus. Honestly, even I wasn't very excited to listen to the message, because I kind of felt like I knew all there was to know about that passage. And having been in church nearly 30 years (and having attended a rigorous Christian school for 7 of those years), I was pretty sure that by now, I knew not to "take my eyes off Jesus in the midst of life's storms."

*Yawn*

But I guess I'm not as awesomely smart as I thought I was. Because a few new concepts popped up on my radar. I'll save the best for last :)

The first is something that wasn't necessarily "new" for me, but the way it was presented in the Bible was a twist on my perspective. It's simply that the old adage of "the safest place for you to be is in God's will" is a misnomer. Here are a few examples:

• Prophets like Elijah and John the Baptist resided in deserts, living off of insects and food that birds brought to them.
• The prophet Ezekiel had to lay on the ground on his left side for over a year (Ezekiel 4:5).
• Jesus was in God's will. We all know how that ended for Him.

Clearly, being in God's will isn't any indication of "prosperity" or easy living.

But Mark 6:45 says, "Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him." Not that He offered them the option, but that He "made" them. He knew that there was a whopper of a storm coming. Yet He sent them out AND left them.

The second thing I learned was shocking to me and blew me away. If we read on in Mark 6. . . well, let me just quote it for you-- with minimal interruption. My words are in brackets.

"Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he [Jesus] was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them [He saw them in the midst of their struggle]. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified."

Wait. . . did you see that? "He was about to pass them by." No way!! Check out a few other translations:

• "He would have passed them by." KJV
• "He meant to pass by them." ESV
• "He intended to go past them." NLT

In each translation, every time, the phrase is followed with "but. . ." And it's beautiful. The reason Jesus stopped to help, the reason Peter got to walk on water, and the reason the whole storm subsided was because they "cried out." And it wasn't a well-worded plea, premised with eloquent, poetic praise. They were scared out of their minds, crying out in fear.

I kind of wish the Bible included what they had said. But the incident was recorded in three books of the Bible, each of which was written either by the hand of a disciple who was there, or by a man who had interviewed a disciple. And I bet they weren't talking :)

Regardless, the fact remains that the sound of His children's cry stopped Him in His tracks and altered His path. I think it's easy to buy into the idea that God has some concrete slab carved out with our exact moves and His exact response. That there's no spontaneity in the Deity. And that concept puts a pretty heavy damper on a person's prayer life. What is the point?

But this passage (along with some Old Testament examples) portrays a God who is sometimes willing to set aside His omniscience, and treat us as if He is on our level. He is powerful enough (and in His own right) to vaporize me, yet He is willing to sit with me on my bed and chat. That is the God I'm excited to know more.