“O You of Little Faith”

Matthew 8:23, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Jesus spoke these words to his disciples after they woke him up with saying in verse 25, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” Now I think all of us would freak out if a great storm broke forth and we were in the middle of the sea on a boat. But then I started thinking more about the situation. For the previous 3 chapters in Matthew, the disciples had been taught by Jesus and had been watching him heal people and perform miracles. Wouldn’t that be enough to allow them to just calmly wake up Jesus and ask Him to save them?

They seemed to realize that Jesus might be able to save them because they did wake him up. But when they said, “we are perishing,” it seemed to indicate that they didn’t completely trust that Jesus was able to save them.  And that’s when Jesus says, “Why are you afraid, O you of little of faith?” Jesus knows their hearts. He knows they are afraid and scared for their lives.

Then it struck me, we are in the same place that the disciples were that day. When something goes wrong or we’re caught in a trial, we start to freak out and look for ways to save ourselves.  We remember that we God is there and we sometimes pray to Him and ask for help. But, just like the disciples, we tend to not put our complete faith in the fact that He will help us. Instead of fearing the future and what is going to happen in the midst of this hardship, God wants us to cry out to Him. He wants our complete faith to be in Him and not any circumstance or thing of this world.  Let it not be said of us, “O you of little faith!”