Faith During the Storm
(These excerpts from ‘The Doctor,’ Lloyd-Jones, are incredibly powerful reminders of faith in times of testing)
“…But things may be desperate: ‘All things seem against us, to drive us to despair.’ Let us then be prepared for that. Yes, but we must go further. While all this is happening to us, our Lord appears to be utterly unconcerned about us. That is where the real trial of faith comes in.
“The wind and the billows were bad enough and the water coming into the ship. That was terrible, but the thing that to them was most terrible of all was His apparent unconcern. Still sleeping and not apparently caring. ‘Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ He appears to be unconcerned, unconcerned about us, unconcerned about Himself, unconcerned about His cause, unconcerned about His Kingdom.
“Just imagine the feelings of these men. They had followed Him and listened to His teaching about the coming of the Kingdom, they had seen His miracles were expecting marvellous things to happen; and now it looked as if everything was going to come to an end in shipwreck and drowning. What an anti-climax and all because of his unconcern!
“We must be very young indeed in the Christian life if we do not know something about this. Do we not all know something of this position of trial and difficulty, yes, and of a feeling that God somehow does not seem to care? He does not do anything about it…The fact that God permits these things and that He often appears to be quite unconcerned about it all really constitutes what I am describing as the trial of faith…”
“…However poor and small and however incomplete the faith of these disciples was on this occasion, they at any rate had a sufficient amount of faith to make them do the right thing in the end. They went to Him. Having been agitated and distressed and alarmed and exhausted, they went to Him. They still had some kind of feeling that He could do something about it, and so they woke Him and said: ‘Master, are you not going to do something about it?’
“That is very poor faith you may say, very weak faith, but it is faith, thank God. And even faith ‘like a grain of mustard see’ is valuable because it takes us to Him. And when you do go to Him this is what you will find. He will be disappointed with you and He will not conceal that. He will rebuke you, He will say: ‘Why did you not reason it out, why did you not apply your faith, why do you appear agitated before that worldly person, why do you behave as if you were not a Christian at all, why didn’t you apply your faith as you should have done? I would have been so pleased if I could have watched you standing like a man in the midst of the hurricane or storm – O why didn’t you?’ He will let us know that He is disappointed in us and He will rebuke us; but, blessed be His name, He will nevertheless still receive us. He does not drive us away. He did not drive these disciples away, He received them and He will receive us. Yes, and He will not only receive us, He will bless us and He will give us peace. ‘He rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm.’
“He produced the condition they were so anxious to enjoy, in spite of their lack of faith. Such is the gracious Lord that you and I believe in and follow. Though He is disappointed in us often and though He rebukes us, He will never neglect us; He will receive us, He will bless us, He will give us peace, indeed He will do for us what He did for these men. With this peace He gave them a still greater conception of Himself than they had had before…”
“…It is exactly the same with the element of patience or patient endurance, the sheer capacity to go on and to keep on in spite of discouragement. That is one of the greatest tests a Christian can ever have. We are not patient by nature. We start as children in the Christian life and we want everything at once, and if it does not come, we become impatient and grumble, we complain and we sulk like children. That is because we are lacking in patience and patient endurance.
“There is nothing more emphasized in the New Testament Epistles than this quality of just keeping on whether things go well with us or not. We are to go on saying: ‘God knows what is best for me. I will trust in God.’ ‘Even though He slay me yet will I trust Him.’ That is patient endurance, keeping on, and it is as we are tried and tested that all these other elements which go to furnish out our faith become developed and are perfected…” (Lloyd-Jones)
