Silence in the Storm

During Jesus' day, disciples (students) didn't just go to school and learn from their teachers. They immersed themselves into their teacher's life. They followed their teacher almost every moment of every day. This is true for Jesus' twelve disciples. They were always with Jesus.

They experienced all the miracles first hand that Jesus performed. Each miracle I read, I believe in my heart that it is a historical fact that has been recorded into the Living Word of God. I don't doubt what the Bible says; however, that doesn't mean that I have faith in them. Belief and faith are two totally different claims.

As I was reading in my one-year Bible, I came across another of Jesus' miracles: "Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: 'Silence!' The sea became smooth as glass" (Matthew 8.26 Message). Jesus and His disciples were floating in the middle of a severe storm. The disciples believed they were drowning, and Jesus was taking a nap on the deck.

After Jesus spoke peace into this middle of this storm, The Message Bible reads in verse 27, "The men [disciples] rubbed their eyes, astonished. "What's going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!"

Just that day Jesus had healed a leper, the Centurion's servant who was not even present, the "inwardly tormented" and the "bodily ill." Why all of a sudden did the disciples rub their eyes? What had changed to cause them to ask, "What's going on here?" They had seen Jesus do miracles. They had belief, but they still lacked faith.

The distinction between belief and faith occurs when the miracle needed becomes personal. It is easy to believe victory over someone else's storm, but it takes faith to claim victory over your own storm. God is teaching me faith because I'm learning to claim victory in my own storms while the waves of life are crashing on me, causing me to want to give-up and drown.

Faith is hard because everywhere I look, all I see is impossibility and hopelessness. I don't see an answer in the physical, but I need to claim God's solution in the spiritual. The storm is causing me to feel pain, worry, mistrust, fear and anger; but I need to take those thoughts captive and claim victory (2 Corinthians 10.5). The physical world is merely a manifestation of what's going on in the spiritual world. If I can shout victory in the spirit by faith, God can take that mustard seed of faith and create the solution (Matthew 17.20)!

What storm are you in the middle of today? A finance storm? A marriage storm? A job storm? A ministry storm? An inward storm? You are the eye of the storm. The storm wouldn't be there if you didn't exist. Don't just believe that God can do a miracle. Have faith that God is producing a miracle from the storm's center -- you. Stand up in faith and allow the Holy Spirit within to claim "Silence" over the storm.