23 Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. 24 Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
26 Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.
27 The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked. “Even the winds and waves obey him!”
After a long day of preaching, healing, casting out demons, and doing Messiah things Jesus is very tired and lies down in the boat to get a little sleep. While Jesus is sleeping a massive storm hits and waves are smashing into the boat and crashing on top of them.
A little background, the Sea of Galilee is basically a huge hole in the ground that is about 700 feet below sea-level. Sudden storms were not uncommon for this sea. They kind of just dropped into the giant hole in the earth without warning and created huge waves and powerful winds.
Even though these storms were sudden and seemed terrible, a professional fisherman wouldn't be intimidated by them. These guys were on the water a lot and weren't afraid of much. Why did this scare them? At this time, although the disciple's had seen many miracles, they didn't really believe Jesus to be the Messiah that the prophets had spoken of. Perhaps, God made this storm worse than what these guys were used to so Jesus could show them that he not only had power over people, but also nature. To prove that he was God and that they need not to fear.
That being said, the disciples woke up a physically drained Messiah to show him their cruddy faith. The Greek word "oligopistoi" means a lack of good faith, not a quantitative amount of faith, because faith can't really be measured by numbers. It was their poor quality of faith. I bring this to light because if the disciples lacked faith entirely, they wouldn't have woke Jesus up. They knew he could do something, so they woke him up. But their faith wasn't strong enough for them to just believe that God wouldn't send his perfect son to earth to die in a boating accident.
This makes me think of us…
Sometimes we know God can do huge things, but we don't trust him enough to follow his good and perfect will (Jeremiah 29:11)
How do we follow God's good and perfect will?
I feel like preachers have talked about this a lot, but never given me practical application. So here are some ways that we can see God's plan and thus, follow it.
1. Spiritual Disciplines
-Prayer
I know this is said a lot, but we can't expect God to show us his plan without talking to him and asking him to show us his plans.
But how does he reply?
God doesn't respond verbally to us, like our earthly father would. But God DEFINITELY shows us his will through other things. More to come on that.
-Reading your Bible
Sometimes God shows us his plans for our lives through scripture. How many times have you sat down to read your bible and the stuff you read involves the EXACT stuff you've been dealing with in your life. Hasn't ever happened to you? Try praying for God to show you his will before you read his word. "Knock and the door shall be opened", does that ring any bells?
2. Manifestation
-Sometimes God's will just works out fluidly in our lives.
In the summer of 2010 I went to Honduras for a month long internship through a church planting organization called Mision Caribe. I prayed and prayed asking if this was God's will and as a fifteen-year-old kid wondered how I would know what he wanted. I had to raise about $1,000, which isn't a massive amount of money, but without a job or any real way of making money this seemed almost undoable. So i raised about $200 mowing and doing other odd jobs and sent out about fifty support letters. I prayed and, BOOM! God provided the money without any hiccups whatsoever. Even as a minor traveling alone into a foreign country I had no problems, and actually it worked to my advantage. I got to board planes before everyone else! I later realized this was God showing me that it was what he wanted me to do.
3. Lack of Comfort
- Other times the Holy Spirit shows God's his will to us by making us uncomfortable with what we're doing.
Another example in my own life of this occurring is with my own father. When I was about seven my dad went into full-time ministry.
When my dad was in junior high he dedicated his life to God's will and was led to vocational ministry. My dad was so on fire for God and so pumped about following his will, he made a pulpit in his dad's shop. Then through high school he fell away from God's will and followed his own dreams and joined the Air Force. Many years later, he was running a car repair shop, making lots of money and even doing some part time ministry at our church. But he wasn't fully following God's will with his life. What did God do? Made him very uncomfortable. Even as a seven-year-old, I noticed my dad's depression. It was the Holy Spirit working inside of him. Next thing I knew, we were moving to St. Petersburg, Florida. God then used him in very powerful ways. Crazy, huh?
Its crazy how we know God is right, but don't put full faith in him, like the disciples on the boat, that stormy day in The Sea of Galilee. If we have faith, we will recognize God's plan.
So don't wake Jesus up to ask him what to do, he's already got it covered, we just have to put full faith in him and pay attention to the ways he's already showing us.
Jeremiah Harenza
No comments:
Post a Comment