Scary Things Jesus Said: Part 4
The following story happened a while ago, as in years, but I don’t remember exactly how many.
A ministry was advertising healing miracles, so my buddies and I took a friend who suffered from cerebral palsy to an evening meeting. The young minister was of the faith movement persuasion.
You may be familiar? If not, the faith movement emphasized that the believer’s level of faith acted on God to answer prayers. If you had no faith or little faith … well too bad for you. Or, at least, that is the depth the movement sank to. It didn’t start there.
Not to go off topic, but going off topic, have you been paying attention to how quickly a new prayer tool or strategy, after it’s given to the body of Christ, becomes the latest and greatest answer to all our problems?
The new thing quickly fills the mouth of a multitude of preachers, who begin churning out sermons and books. Oh! The books! Book sales are off the charts!
Now, whether these sudden experts understand the new strategy or have applied it beyond a quick dip of the toe; that is, they have read someone else’s book or listened to someone else’s sermon, is questionable. Nonetheless, the drums will be pounded until the next strategy comes down the pike. Have you noticed? It’s a pattern. Back to our topic.
As this up-and-coming minister enthusiastically exhorted his audience to believe that God wanted to heal our illnesses and injuries, his eyes would slide sideways to where we sat with our obviously crippled friend.
When it came time for the altar call, we eagerly came forward, expecting the Lord to perform a healing miracle. Instead, the minister sharply questioned our faith.
He wanted to know if we had faith. If we had enough faith to heal our friend. Because his prayers would not work for her unless we had faith.
Apparently, we failed the faith test, because nothing happened after he prayed. I can’t help but be suspicious that the minister had found a way to wiggle off the hook.
That we tend to blame shift and squirm our way out of the corners we have backed ourselves into isn’t today’s topic. And neither is this next observation, but it is an important one. So, I will digress.
If God had healed her in that moment, then we would have believed we had purchased a miracle with our faith. We would have celebrated our faith. We would have thought that we made God obey us with our faith.
Here is the sad thing. I know that God longed to heal our friend, but He will not be manipulated by manufactured faith. And God doesn’t sell His miracles for any coin, including the faith coin. (See Acts 8:17-20).
Now forward to our topic: Scary Things Jesus Said: Part Four!
When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, a violent storm developed on the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. Matthew 8:23-27
Does “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” sound a little judgey to you? Because it does to me. Was He saying they shouldn’t have disturbed Him? Did He expect them to just keep on believing and rowing even though the storm was so violent that waves were covering the boat and they were going to drown?
Now, Jesus isn’t stupid, so I don’t believe He was calling his guys out about the weather. I think He was asking them this:
Why did you wait so long to wake Me up? Why wait until we were on the point of drowning? I get that you are afraid of the weather. But why are you afraid of Me? Do you really have so little faith in my kindness?
My great aunt once told me that she didn’t pray about her concerns because she didn’t want to bother God. She said that He had enough to do without being worried with her little problems. Even as a new Christian, I wasn’t fooled. She didn’t believe that He wanted to help her. That is why she didn’t ask for help.
Let’s not be like the guys in the boat or like my great aunt. Let’s not wait until we are drowning in fear or trouble or sin to ask for help. Even if you don’t have much faith in God’s goodness and willingness to help, take what little you have—even if it feels like nothing—and ask for help. Start with this:
Lord, I don’t have any faith in my faith. And maybe that is a good thing. But please help me, because it feels like I am drowning and I don’t know how to help myself. I’m putting down the oars of self-reliance. It isn’t working anyway. Show me your lovingkindness and rescue me.
God bless you,
Susan
You stilled the roaring of the seas, the pounding of their waves, and the tumult of the nations. Psalm 65:7
