Mark 4

“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” (vs. 39,40)

The disciples were looking at the wind and the waves and were not confident that when Jesus is in their presence, no harm would come to them. Jesus rebuked them by asking a significant question: “How is it that ye have no faith?” Now, we need to ask ourselves, “How is it that I have no faith?” You see, we seem to have no faith by the way we live our lives. We are so fearful; we are so fickle; we seem to have no faith at all. Jesus is in us, just as He was in the ship, but He is wide awake in us! He is aware of the storms that are coming our way, or may already have hit us, and He is not worried about it at all. Galations 2:20 is what I consider “my” verse because it says that we have the faith of Christ, and not merely faith in Christ. He is in us, and His faith is in us also. Faith is listed with the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12:9, and is given to each of us to some extent. There is no excuse for unbelief. We choose to believe or disbelieve; it is not a matter of many years of struggling to acquire some faith, but of a decision to believe. I used to wonder how the old saints could have such great a faith, until an event in my life showed me that I too can refuse to doubt, and exercise faith.

My wife had attended a ladies meeting where, among the guest speakers, John R. Rice was speaking to women. At one point in his message, he mentioned that he had prayed for women to have sons, not just a baby, but a boy baby, and made them promise to dedicate Him to the Lord to preach the Gospel. We had two daughters already, but at the end of his message he asked the ladies who would like him to pray that they would have a “man child” and try to raise him with the intent of him preaching the Gospel some day. Well, my wife raised her hand. That night, she told me all about it, and soon we were expecting a baby. Many people told us that they prayed for a girl or boy specifically, but got the opposite, and few really believed we would have a boy. I told my wife, “if we asked for a boy, let’s believe God for a boy”, and we did get our boy, by the way. There were times that doubt would come, and I thought “You are going to look awfully foolish if it’s a girl” but I rebuked the thought, and convinced myself that it would not be a girl. We had many people question our faith, and try to cause doubt, but we kept telling everyone that it will be a boy. You see, it would not have been ME that looked bad, but God after we had told so many people, and He will not allow Himself to look bad. When doubts come, just refuse to dwell on them, and “change the channel” of your thinking. I did, and it worked!