OnFire 173 Along for the Ride
OnFire Encouragement Letter
Hi Folks:
Our news this week is that we received
confirmation about an international student we will be hosting. He is a
16-year-old, grade 11 student from
Please continue to pray for our friend Dwayne. If you will remember, he is battling a brain tumour and is completing his radiation treatments.
Last week's typo was a lot of fun. "Money wrench" was supposed to be "monkey wrench." Still, it was true.
That’s about it for now. Blessings for your week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love to explore and when I get the chance I
like to drive down roads to see where they go. One day I had the boys with me
and I decided to explore the back roads of
This week while I was reading in my Bible I had one of those moments which caught me by surprise. You know, those moments where we think, “How did I not see that before?” It was a familiar passage, and I’ve even written on it before, but it was a new connection.
I happen to think that this is one of the ways God speaks to us. That He opens our eyes to see something we have not noticed in the Scriptures before, and the meaning comes to life.
I was reading in Matthew 8 and I saw a new
connection in the passage. A lot happens in this chapter as Jesus’ ministry
picks up. The crowds followed him from the mountainside in
Then it was time to cross the lake and Jesus gave orders to make it so. This became a dividing point where some chose to follow and some chose to stay behind. For one man security was the issue: “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (8:20) For another man it was a matter of family obligation and peoples’ expectations. “Let the dead bury their own dead.”(8:22) I’ve written about these before. Not everyone chose to follow Jesus. OnFire #92 and #93 were about these two cases.
Then we get to the familiar account of Jesus crossing the lake. A storm blew up and the disciples became afraid. Jesus, incredibly, was sleeping while the others panicked and feared for their lives. “We’re going to drown!” (8:25) Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, and then rebuked the wind and the waves.
Here is what caught my eye. I’ve always read the account of the calming of the sea as a separate story, but it is connected to what came before. The disciples in the boat are not so very different from those who stayed behind. They were with Jesus, but they wished they weren’t. Its not so different from the Israelites who whined to Moses, “It would be better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11)
As followers it is easy to point the finger at those who do not follow and feel very secure about it. We are following. We are in the boat. But let the winds rise and the waves pound, and we begin to whine. Not out loud, because we know that’s not spiritual. But inwardly we moan and groan and the joy of following slips away because we’re not actually following. We’re just going along because we’re stuck in the boat.
That was the revelation to me this week. Safety and family obligation may not be my issue, but the storms challenge me. And curiously, the storms aren’t always bad. Some of them are little puffs with a few ripples. We are funny critters, aren’t we.
That was the challenge to me this week. Not to see myself as stuck in the boat with Jesus, but to see myself in the boat because I’m actually following him. That I will go where he goes, and that because he is with me I will trust him and not whine about it.
I hope this helps. Be on fire.
To view the archives, go to http://onfireletter.com/archives.html
OnFire is a weekly letter on faith and character written by Troy Dennis. This letter published Jan 15, 2009. Bible reference taken from the New International Version. To subscribe or reply, email onfireletter@gmail.com. Archives are located at www.onfireletter.com