on the boat to compensate for the direction of the wind.  It was one of these weight bags that Jesus was using to rest upon as He slept.

 

And as He slept... as the disciples were concluding that He didn’t care about their dire predicament, everything was under control... but they just couldn’t see it?

 

Why couldn’t they see that they were safe?  Because they do what we often do, we look at our circumstances and not to the promise and presence of God.  Sin in our distress can cause us to put God’s loving care out of the picture, and all we see is what even the unbelievers see in our situation.

 

When the disciples ask, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” they speak not just for themselves... they speak also for the men on the other boats who are caught in the storm.

 

Sometimes in our terrible circumstances God leads us to see that others have problems too.  That’s good!  It’s good that we lift up our eyes from our own situation to care for the difficulties others also face.

 

Yet when we cry to Jesus with wrenching accusations... when we feel that He doesn’t care or that things are out of control because God is unaware... Jesus must

remind us that the problem is now not the storms of life, but our lack of faith.

 

Sometimes the fog of doubt causes us to fail in our adventures with Jesus.

 

It was a fog-shrouded morning, July 4, 1952, when a young woman named Florence Chadwick waded into the water off Catalina Island. She intended to swim the channel from the island to the California coast. Long-distance swimming was not new to her; she had been the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.

 

The water was numbing cold that day. The fog was so thick she could hardly see the boats in her party. Several times sharks had to be driven away with rifle fire.

 

She swam more than 15 hours before she asked to be taken out of the water. Her trainer tried to encourage her to swim on since they were so close to land, but when Florence looked, all she saw was fog. So she quit. . . only one-mile from her goal.

 

Later she said, "I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen the land I might have made it." We too, if we take the eye of faith off of Jesus on our journey with Him, fail.

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