Safe Harbor

How I long for the Lord's voice to calm the storms of life with only a word and with instant results. The struggle is exhausting, bailing in desperation against the battering of waves. With the disciples I cry out to Jesus who is also in the boat and seems oblivious and sleeping, "Don't you care if [I] drown?"

And yet I hear his response, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Still, when the harsh winds gust, the striving, the rowing in futility against them leaves me weak, tired and seemingly alone... as Jesus watches from a distance. Then when he does come he's about to pass by and with Peter I cry out in fear, "Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water." And in a spontaneous moment of faith and trust step out of the boat in response to his invitation to "come" and walk on the water toward Jesus... again, though, like Peter, when I take my eyes from Jesus and focus it on the windy circumstances fear takes hold again and I begin to sink and also cry out, "Lord, save me!"

Again, he responds, "You of little faith. Why did you doubt?"

In both situations, Jesus initially responded with great and loving mercy to the disciples' fears. First by calming the storm and second by catching Peter. Yet both times he also commented on their lack of faith.

Where is faith in all of this, in facing lifes storms? What would have happened if they'd not woken Jesus? Or what would have happened if they'd stopped their striving against the wind and instead turned into it? What if... What if the worst fear were realized and my little ship capsized and I were thrown into the raging waters or if I turned into the wind and were taken some place I did not want to go? Well, I suppose that is where faith is and, more importantly, the question of in Whom I place it.

Recently while reading The Quiet Way by Gerhard Tersteegen I found a passage that says it best:

"Since then, I am neither willing nor able to row against the wind, I let my little ship go in it. If only I take care not to stick fast on some sand bank of selfishness, let come what may, even if I suffer shipwreck, it will only be in the ocean of God, whose depths are as good as the best harbor." (p. 11)