January 02, 2009
Just Passing By
Sometimes we believers get a little cocky because our salvation is secure and we know for a fact that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. But picture this; the disciples are in a boat on the lake and straining at the ores because the wind is against them. Jesus, walking on the lake, “…was about to pass by them…” It appears that Jesus might not have stopped if the disciples hadn’t cried out to Him. I wonder how many times I’ve been in dire straights and, because I failed to call out to Him, Jesus just kept on walking. (Mark 6:48)
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Gail;
-----Do you think Jesus would have passed His disciples by if they were in real danger? What might have happened if Jesus had not come to the boat and stilled the storm? Of course, there are no precise answers to these questions, because Jesus did answer their cries for help. But I have some personal speculations.
-----I don’t think Jesus would have passed them by if they were positively in danger, even if they had not called out to Him. They were His, and He guards what is His. I think maybe He would have let their boat swamp and sink, and then would have pulled them each from the water by the collar, giving each a good shaking for not recognizing their need and calling for Him. His life was also about teaching lessons, and we all have numerous lessons we’ve learned in this manner. Israel is an ongoing Biblical lesson of His protective love.
-----But I don’t think the disciples were necessarily in certain peril. Not every boat caught in a storm sinks. Mark says they were “…making headway painfully…” (RSV), so He came to them and meant to pass them by. From this, I presume, He meant to be an encouragement in their distress. If they had not cried out, they would have been left to handle their own situation with courage. When my bipolar situation reached a serious state in my early twenties, I called out to the Lord also. But I asked Him neither to quell the storm nor to control my boat by His miraculous power. I wanted to learn my boat and how to handle it so I would never row into that storm again, and so I might be able to encourage and help others in the same storm. He walked alongside my boat showing me how to connect the principles of His Word to my ore strokes and discernment of the waves to keep my boat’s attitude in proper alignment with their passing crests and troughs. It was not a comfortable experience, but it was a joyful and educational one I would trade for nothing.
-----To His disciple’s distress of the storm was added the confusion of what they could not clearly see was their Lord walking in the midst of it. According to Mark, it was their terror of thinking Him to be a ghost that brought forth their outcry. From the fact that His intention of walking by them on the water was a response to their difficulty in managing the storm, I presume His entry into the boat and quelling the storm was in regard for their comfort rather than their safety. The Lord forewent His first intention of merely being an encouragement within their experience, and swerved His intention into actually clarifying who He was and ending the experience out of regard for their level of distress.
-----He is a loving God of comfort; who can not adore this guy for His character? I believe we should be loving children of comfort as well. That is why I take umbrage at all the calls for pushing each other out of comfort zones in order to serve in the church. His actions were always to be a comforting encouragement, whether by simply passing close where His disciples could see Him, or actually getting into the boat. We do see the Lord allowing them to trip over their own feet at times, but we never see Him actually pushing them into distress. We have enough discomfort in the storms of our lives, and we should be comforting encouragers of each other in the church. We should have respect for each other’s comfort zones so the confusion of what we see in our brothers walking nearby should never be added to the distress of our own storms.
-----It is weathering these storms that educates us in both handling the boat and keeping out of the rough water. I have rowed my boat into waters I don’t care to navigate again, simply because it was wrong for me to be there in the first place. In those storms I call for miraculous help, and my boat, maybe not immediately or comfortably, but somehow definitely, comes to land. And that is a comfort, too.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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