Matt. 14:26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.
Jesus apparently likes storms, He often hides in them. The disciples were fresh from seeing one of the greatest miracles of all time; they watched as the Lord multiplied a little boy’s lunch right before their very eyes. They took the fragments themselves and fed thousands of hungry people as Jesus multiplied the fish and the bread. They were still digesting this bread and fish in their own bellies when the storm blew up on the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus came walking on the water they couldn’t accept what they were seeing. Jesus was walking on the water and all they could think was that some monster of fantasy was coming to get them. The same miracle worker that multiplies fish and bread can also walk on water, even in a storm. Maybe you are in a storm in some arena of your life. Rather than thinking the devil is coming to kill you in the storm, maybe Jesus is actually about to show up big time in your life. Here are some thoughts from Mclaren on today’s verse.
“We too often mistake Christ, when He comes to us. We do not recognize His working in the storm, nor His presence giving power to battle with it. We are so absorbed in the circumstances that we fail to see Him through them. Our tears weave a veil which hides Him, or the darkness obscures His face, and we see nothing but the threatening crests of the waves, curling high above our little boat. We mistake our best friend, and we are afraid of Him as we dimly see Him; and sometimes we think that the tokens of His presence are only phantasms of our own imagination.”
I love that last line about the tokens of His presence, these tokens indicate the mighty presence of the Lord. When storms come, rejoice. They are often God’s strange tool He uses to answer prayer. Rather than seeing your storm as the end, see it as the beginning; this is the beginning of God’s power being displayed in your life. The remaining testimony will glorify the Lord. Look carefully out into your storm, I think Jesus is walking on the sea towards you.
