Mark 4:35-40
35 On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. 37 And there *arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. 38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. 40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
What we have in these verses is the difference between pleading faith and resting faith. God does want us to stay desperate for Him. There is a desperation that longs to know Him and experience Him more, which is wonderful, but there is a desperation that many Christians live in that is full of fretting and anxiety. The Apostles had that kind of faith. They knew Jesus was the solution to their problem and they came to Him, pleading with Him to help, but at the end of the story Jesus rebukes them for having no faith.
Years ago, when I used to read this story, I was always left confused. It seemed to me that in an overwhelming and scary situation, they did exercise faith. They turned to Him in their need, calling on Him to help. That’s how I was living my Christian life. I had lived for years without ever looking to Jesus for anything and now I was constantly coming to Him, urging Him to rescue me. Then one day I saw it! Jesus rebuked them for having no faith because He had already told them, at the beginning, that they were going all the way to the other side. There was no chance that they would sink, no matter how bad the storm or how much water their little boat took on. They were going to make it to the other side even if the boat sank and they became the first submarine in history.
He is always faithful and He had declared His intention. Notice his posture in he boat. He is not fretting or pleading for His Father’s help. He was Resting in certain, quiet confidence. Is that how you face your issues in life? Have you entered into His Rest? Do live your Christian life with a resting confidence in a Trusted Jesus? He said that in every situation He has called you into, He will do it (1Thess.5:24 KJV). You may not how He is going to do it, but you can Rest in the fact that it is His situation and that He will be faithful to His word. As a matter of fact, He asked them why they were so TIMID. In other words, “You knew, based on My word, that we couldn’t sink, so why didn’t you calmly stand in faith and tell the storm to go away?”
Pleading faith or Resting faith? Resting faith is a much better way to travel through the sea of this fallen world, where storms do pop up from time to time.