Strong Comfort

A couple of months ago Dad wrote wrote the following when describing this current journey:

"The boat is different, the lake is different and the storm is different but the voice that beacons us from the boat sounds the same, the eyes we look into are the same and the hand that lifts us as we sink is the same. The walk back to the boat is still just as humbling! (Matthew 14:28-33)"

About a month later I sat in a quaint country house in Ramona, Kansas with some dear friends for a class on Prayer and Retreat. And on a quiet Sunday morning with our coffee in hand we sat together and pondered that same passage. I sat and listened to God's word read; I listened to what others had heard God say in that passage. And as I pondered these things something struck me: Jesus insisted his disciples go into those waters. He sent them to the place where they were totally overwhelmed; to a place where they feared the waves would overtake them.


I sometimes get caught up in my own skewed view of God - the one that says if I do what God wants me to, he'll give me what I want. Of course I know this isn't true, but I still have a hard time fathoming that it is possible that I went where God would have me go and I did as he would have me do, and still my life got harder. "What?!? Seriously?!? God can't you see that the storm here is raging, the water is climbing higher and hirgher around me, and the waves are threatening to overtake me. Don't you know I am overwhelmed. I am so afraid." But inevitably the gentle response comes. "Yes child. I know these waves seem huge to you, but they are nothing to me. Do not be afraid. I am here. I never left."



If I have learned anything in these past few months, it is that God shows up--that he is always near. He is quick to reach out, grab my hand, and carry me back to the boat. He is quick to comfort. I read this quote from John Owen recently:


The holy spirit comforts and strengthens the hearts of believers...this comfort is strong. As we experience strong opposition and trouble, so our comfort or consolation is strong and so unconquerable. It confirms and strengthens the heart under any evil. It fortifies the soul and makes it able cheerfully to undergo anything that it is called to undergo. This comfort is strong because he who brings it is strong.