Mark 6:30 - end

In Mark 6, Jesus is teaching a crowd of over 5,000 people. But it gets late and they are hungry and far from any town. Besides, the disciples of Jesus claim that it would take a small fortune to feed them all. Then Jesus takes what they have - 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish - and blesses it to feed the entire crowd (and even has a lot of leftovers!)!!!

Later on, in the middle of the night, the disciples are in a boat in the middle of the lake, working really, really hard ("straining at the oars"). They are trying to get to the other side but the wind is blowing them back to where they started ("the wind was against them"). Perhaps they weren't even making any progress at all! I remember when I was young, getting caught out on the lake in the evening with the wind against me. It was pretty scary because it often seemed like I was never going to get to shore. It was just so exhausting to fight the wind and the boat. And beside that, bats started flying over the water, flying low to get the bugs, but that meant they kept swooping at our heads! (I try not to think about that much - gives me the willies! - but I just thought of it while trying to picture the situation the disciples were in.)

I thought, how many times are we working so hard at life, trying to get where we are going and feeling like the winds of life are continually blowing us back to where we were. Discouraging. Most of the time we just put our heads down and work even harder.

The disciples were working so hard that when Jesus walked by the boat, they were very surprised. Tough, hard-working fishermen though they were, they cried out in fear, thinking he was a ghost.

Had they not been with him day after day? Had they not seen him do amazing things over and over? Had they not seen him just feed over 5,000 people with a tiny amount of food? But Mark tells us that they just didn't get it because their hearts were hard. They didn't get it that Jesus could do ANYTHING he wanted to do with the things of the earth. Apparently they forgot to ask for help and were just doing the work on their own, by themselves.

How many times have I been working hard on something, on my own, and am surprised by Jesus? How many times does he have to remind ME of his power and his ability to help?

Then, Jesus gets in the boat and the wind stops and they can go where they wanted to go. They are still doing the work, but Jesus made it possible. How many times have I remembered to ask Jesus to ride with me and saw the "boat" was much easier to handle. I need to remember this.

Jesus, please help me to ask you to ride with me, and if I forget, please help me see you coming on the water and take away my fear. Soften my heart so I can know it is you and so I can "see" what you are doing and are able to do in this earthly world. Remind me of your power and your love so I can have the courage to ride with you. Show me when I am "straining at the oars" when "the wind is against me" and to realize that when you stop the wind, I CAN do the work.