Spoken Confidence

You know how there are certain people that you look at and go, “That guy is just plain cool…”?  It seems to happen most with people that we don’t know – though, on occasion you can find someone who is just plain cool no matter what.  I imagine that the men and women who followed Jesus so closely thought of him that way.  But there were clearly moments when they had become OK with who Jesus was, a bit comfortable perhaps.

Mark tells us that Jesus told numerous parables as he taught a crowd of people, but as the evening drew near, he decided to move on by boat.  So they climb into a boat and take off across the lake.  Jesus goes to sleep in the stern, and shortly, a storm brews up, enough to toss the waves over the boat and threaten to capsize the crew.  The disciples frantically wake Jesus up – and this is where it gets interesting.

They ask, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  Obviously they know that Jesus is the son of God because they expect him to do something about this.  They also, had not a clue what to do, resigning themselves to capsizing.  Then Jesus does a truly remarkable thing – he stands up, tells the waves to be quiet and still…and sure enough the storm dissipates immediately.

Then the disciples ask each other, “Who is this guy?!?”

I’ve been processing this one for  a few days, trying to figure out why they lacked faith (which is what Jesus asks them after he calms the storm).  It seems to me that they had the nerve to ask him to save them but evidently didn’t believe that he could because of their panicked reactions to what was happening.

Confidence in a situation comes from knowing that whatever your trust is in will pull through…

…too often I say my confidence is in Christ yet my reaction is based on my confidence in myself, because I know I won’t/can’t come through…

how about you?