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Week 7 (February)
The crashing waves spilled water into the boat. The high
winds threatened to tear away the sails. Then suddenly a Man stood up in the bow of that fishing
boat and ordered the storm to cease.
Ordered? What a puny gesture that must have seemed to the
rest of the men in the boat. They were experienced seamen working desperately to stay afloat.
They sensed how much at the mercy of that storm they were.
But scarcely had the orders left that Man's mouth when the
storm ended like a curtain dropping at the end of a play.
In that eerie stillness, the Man turned to the others in the
boat and quietly asked: Where is your faith?
He asked is, and not was, for even at that moment some of
the men were whispering to each other: What manner of man is this?
We, too, want to demand of these men: "Where was and
is your faith?" After all, they'd been with Jesus for some time
now. They'd seen something of His extraordinary, supernatural abilities, power and wisdom.
Yet I'm afraid that far too often we're as guilty as they were
in being afraid of perishing in the storms and problems of life.
We know of Jesus' power over the devils of Gadarea, of how
a woman touched only His garment and yet was healed. For the men in the boat that day those
miracles hadn't yet occurred. We know of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. His disciples didn't
yet. But Jesus taught they had seen and experienced enough already. He asked them without
hesitation: "Where is your faith?"
From our perspective, we should expect His
miracle-working presence and power today. Through His Holy
Spirit, Jesus continues to do things which cause us to be surprised at His goodness.
Yet there are times when this Lord of nature, this mighty
Healer, this Master over demonic power must quietly ask even us: "Where is your
faith?"
The Holy Spirit once used a youth group president to put
that question to me.
We were in a church board meeting grappling with having
to pay the interest on a short-term loan. A few months before, the little congregation had taken a
giant leap of faith in purchasing a parsonage. Now, in the storms of life, Satan was making that decision look like a foolhardy one.
In a moment of quiet, we all sat looking at the floor. Then
Nita Alderson said firmly: "I believe the Lord would have us pay off the whole loan this
year."
I began to think of all the reasons why our little church
couldn't do that. We didn't even have the money to pay the interest! Then I heard a quiet little
voice inside me asking, "Where is your faith?"
Nita had been more in touch with the Lord than the rest of
us. In less than a year that loan had been miraculously paid off.
Jesus is still the miracle-working Christ in the storms and
problems of life. Where is your faith? Is it really in Him? The more we trust our lives to Him, the
more He'll inspire in us a confidence in God that will banish
demoralizing fear from our lives and bring assurance to our souls.
I remember singing a hundred-year-old chorus in
Southeastern Oklahoma Nazarene youth camps. The tabernacle at Robbers Cave State Park near
Wilburton, Oklahoma used to echo with: "I can, I will, I do believe . . ."
I want the affirmation of that phrase to be the theme of my walk (or boat
ride) with Jesus.
These devotional thoughts by Howard Culbertson appeared in the February 17, 1980 edition of Standard
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Howard Culbertson, 5901 NW 81st, Oklahoma
City, OK 73132 | Phone: 405-740-4149 - Fax:
405-491-6658
Updated: February 13, 2019
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