Like most people, I expend regular effort to avoid knowingly difficult situations. I plan my commute around when I think the freeways will be less crowded. I establish my family’s schedule to allow for plenty of rest, increasing the likelihood of household harmony. I proactively manage my commitments, my finances, and my relationships to help ensure that what unpleasantness I can conscientiously avoid, I do.
Despite this effort, challenges still come my way, as I imagine they do also for you. Although the world may tell us that this is an indication that my efforts are failing, as a Christian I know that is not necessarily the case. After all, as has often been said, God’s goal for His kids is not their happiness but their holiness. Just as my children may sometimes think I am intentionally making their lives difficult by compelling them to work out their differences on their own or to do the tasks that they are assigned, what may seem like unnecessary obstacles to us, may be God working through our circumstances to bring about His desires – namely that His children increasingly rely on and emulate Jesus Christ.
This is a reality that we see throughout Scripture. When Jesus’ disciples found themselves on a boat in the middle of the storm while Jesus contently slept, it may have looked like they weren’t in the right place. I imagine that as the waves tossed them and the boat was damaged, the disciples may have wondered if they had made a mistake. Perhaps, they should have paid more attention to the forecast or secured a sturdier vessel. And while all this may have been going through their minds, Matthew 8:23 tells us that it wasn’t the disciples who made the decision about when to go or even what boat they would use. It says that Jesus “got into the boat, [and] his disciples followed him.” Jesus selected the time and means of their departure; the only One who could control the storm, intentionally led them into it.
Such is true in our own walk with God. God could create smoother roads and lead us by still waters, but sometimes, His will is for us to walk in the dark valleys. This is not because He delights in putting us in difficult situations, but because He knows that what He will accomplish through those situations is a far greater good than what will be accomplished without them. He leads us into the storm because he knows that as we are faced with what we can’t control, our reliance and dependence on Him are prone to grow. Our deepened faith makes us more useful for His Kingdom – which should be the desire and aim of each one of His kids. While this should not prompt us to go looking for trouble or cause us to fail to recognize that sometimes unpleasantness is the natural outcome of our sin, it does mean that if we are following our Savior and doing what He commands, we need not fear what we face. He will never lead us where He doesn’t intend for us to be.
The disciples probably didn’t anticipate a raging storm when they stepped into the boat that day; what they knew, however, was they had followed Christ into it. When we face our own storms, may we also be able to confidently attest that although we didn’t anticipate the difficulties, we are faithfully following where our Savior leads. If that is the case, we need not fear the turbulent waves; the One who is able to calm the storm is with us in the boat.
