(The apologetics series that normally runs in this Thursday slot will return next week. For this week, I have a devotional article I wrote for my local newspaper.)
Have you ever been in a place in your life where you wish the Lord would answer your prayers quickly, be right there when you call, and rush to your aid? I’m sure we can all think of times like that. Perhaps it’s true of this season of our lives especially, as so much of our society has gone through turmoil and social upheaval during the past couple years. The difficult thing is this: God doesn’t always seem to answer as quickly as we would like, even when we’re in those places of great desperation. His presence can feel far off. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like he's paying attention at all.
There’s a story like this in the Gospel of Mark. After performing a miracle of feeding a vast crowd of people with nothing more than the contents of a single lunch basket, Jesus has sent his disciples on ahead of him. The twelve disciples have put out on the Sea of Galilee in their boat, aiming to cross and make a landing on the other side by morning, while Jesus remains on shore. He wants to spend some time alone in prayer, so he goes up on the mountainside that overlooks the water and begins praying (Mark 6:45-47). The moon must have been shining brightly that night, because the story says that Jesus, from his vantage-point on the slope, could see his friends’ boat far out on the water. The wind had arisen, and they were having a difficult time, straining at the oars with all their might. Though some of them were fishermen and were used to such conditions, others had been landsmen their whole lives, for whom it would be a terrifying thing to manage an open boat out on the waves during a windy night, when there is no one else around. No doubt they wished their Master was with them in that moment, the one who could calm the sea, and, more importantly, who could calm the tumult of their souls in the midst of all their fears.
Jesus had every ability to go out and help them, as the story soon demonstrates. This is the story in which Jesus walks on the water, striding out over the waves to meet his disciples amid the fury of the wind-whipped sea. But Mark includes an interesting detail in his telling of the story: although Jesus had noticed the disciples’ difficulties much earlier in the night, it isn’t until the fourth watch of the night—that is, just before dawn—that he goes out to meet them on the waves (Mark 6:48). Why the delay? Why didn’t Jesus just go straight down to help them when he saw them struggling against the wind? One of the answers might be that he was already helping them—perhaps he was praying for them while up on the mountain. Though they couldn’t see him or feel his presence, that didn’t mean he was unaware of what they were going through or unconcerned about it. He was watching over them, and he had already planned to come and make his presence known when the time was right.
I think this is a useful reminder to hold onto. The truth is, there are times when we will feel like we’ve been left out on our own to face the wildness of life’s raging sea. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t watching over us. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care. It may be that God is already at work in our situation in ways that we cannot yet perceive. Scripture tells us that even now, Jesus is praying for us in the presence of God the Father (Rom. 8:34). So take heart. You are not alone, and God is watching over you. He may not intervene precisely at the time we would like or in the exact way we hope he will, but that doesn’t mean he has abandoned us. He is still the same God who can stride through the storm to save us, wherever we might be.