Sometimes it takes a storm. Maybe that’s why Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him. (Mt.14:22) It was eerily similar to the last time (Mt. 8:23-27), except this time he was not asleep in the bow of the boat but was nowhere to be found. Could they still trust him, even if they could not see him? The fact is that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing; he was about to grow their faith exponentially. Unfortunately, faith rarely grows without chaos.
Jesus knew full well the intensity of the
storm he was sending them into, but he also knew full well how profoundly he
was going to meet them in the midst of it.
He did not cause the storm; it was simply the result of living in a
fallen and broken world. In this life,
storms are going to come. It’s
inevitable. But it was not the storm he
was interested in, but the coming to them in the midst of it part. He wanted them to know his grace and his power
and his love and his provision in ways they could only know by having gone
through it.
The
only question was, would they really trust him, even when all hell broke loose? Will you?