And He said to them, "Where is your faith?" They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?" (Luke 8:25 NASB)Fearful and amazed are not two words we usually put together. In this case, phobeō, translated as "fearful", is used to indicate the kind of reverential fear and awe that makes you want to run and hide from a holy God. When that storm stopped and calm descended, the disciples recognized they were in the presence of Someone they did not understand. Jesus was more than they thought. He was greater than they had realized. He had more power than they had imagined.
thaumazō is translated as "amazed". They were filled with wonder at what they had seen. The disciples had been in the constant presence of Jesus for quite some time. They had seen Him cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. They had listened to countless sermons. Despite their familiarity with Jesus, they had not quite grasped His power nor the extent of it until that exciting boat ride. When that wind stopped blowing, they knew He was much more than an entertaining preacher.
That day, He became their Savior for the first time. He literally saved their physical life. Before long, He would save their spiritual life, their soul, as well. They didn't yet understand how much He would do for them, but truth began to dawn in the boat that day, and fearful reverence mingled with complete astonishment.
We are so much like those disciples, aren't we? After years of church services and Bible studies, mission trips and good deeds, we sometimes think our Lord is limited to our routine, but He is not. Perhaps we need a little "excitement in the boat" to remind us of Who Jesus is and the power He has. It is one of the benefits of adversity. It gives us a fresh opportunity to see God at work, and provides us with a little phobeō and thaumazō of our own.
Today, pray that, in the midst of the routines of our lives, our Lord would demonstrate His might and power in such a decisive way that we and our loved ones will be filled with phobeō and thaumazō, and that we will never be the same again.
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Link to last night's post: http://leannahollis.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-ripe-tomato.html
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The terrorist prayer focus this week is Hamas. Pray that they will begin to value life, that their efforts at terror will not prosper, and that their social welfare programs will be more important to them than their costly efforts at destruction. Pray for the kind of Damascus road experience that turned a Saul into a Paul.
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