Where Is Your Faith?
Scripture - Luke 8:22-25
In today's passage Jesus and His disciples are traveling together on a boat and encounter a storm. The Bible is specific and calls it a windstorm, which means the winds we're heavy and rocked the boat to and fro under extreme circumstances; so much so their boat began to fill with water and they were in jeopardy.
Yet in the midst of this great storm, Jesus was peacefully asleep totally unaffected by what going on around Him. Get this... His physical body was in the storm but His spirit and soul wasn't. He had to be awakened by His companions who said, "Master, Master, we are perishing!"
I imagine they were struggling to get the water out the boat. I see them all shuffling, struggling and perhaps bumping into one another while doing all they could just to stay afloat. Can you see them fighting to stay alive? They had already concluded they were perishing in the storm which means they had no hope for survival.
Jesus continued to lay there in the middle of all that chaos, peacefully asleep. How could He be asleep in the storm? But then again, how could they be afraid when Jesus was with them? Did they not really believe after seeing Him provide miracle after miracle before they found themselves in this storm? One would think they would be just as calm as the Master they followed, but the weren't. They were afraid for their lives.
We all experience storms in our lives from time to time. Not just natural storms but emotional storms, relational storms, marital, parental, financial, physical storms, etc. The issue is never really the storms of life we may find ourselves in, but the faith we have that will help us survive the storms. What faith do we need? We need to have faith that Jesus is with us even in the midst of the storm, and faith in that at any given moment He can speak peace in our lives and calm any storm we find ourselves in.
After calming the storm, Jesus didn't ask His disciples what happened (focusing on storm itself), instead He asked, "Where is your faith?" In other words, "Do you believe in this storm or do you believe in Me?" They did all that toiling when their Peace (solution) was right there with them all along.
Are you facing a storm today? If so, where is your faith? Where even, is your focus? On the storm or on Jesus?
Journal
- Are you in the midst of a storm in your life right now? If so, write about it in your journal. Write what's going on and get all your emotions surrounding that storm out on paper.
- Think about at least ten miraculous things Jesus has done for you prior to your current storm and write them in your journal. Then write these words, "If God helped me then, He is helping me now."
- Spend time today and become aware of the fact that Jesus is right there with you in the midst of your storm. Acknowledge His presence and ask Him to speak peace in your life. Receive His peace.
- Look up and write down Scriptures on peace. Read them aloud and begin to speak peace in your own life as well. Shift your faith and your focus.
- Extra reading assignment: David, when he prepared to face Goliath, recalled the precious victories he had as a sheep herder. Read how those victories helped him win the fight of all fights in 1 Samuel 17:20-50.
Then David said, “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you.” -1 Samuel 17:37, HCSB
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