THE ONLY ANSWER

 

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go”.   – Abraham Lincoln

There comes a time in life when you know that God is your only answer……for comfort, for understanding, for help, for healing. I can testify of His efficacy because I have experienced it in my life. It’s a time when you know nothing and nobody of this world could come to your rescue and fix what seeks to destroy you. When a storm so big and so violent and so soul crushing comes into your life, and you cry out for help, the Saviour comes to do what He alone can do, He comes to save.

I think of a great moment in His ministry when Jesus showed His capacity to do so. Whilst preaching in Capernaum, His fame had spread so far and wide that ‘multitudes from Galilee, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan, and they around Tyre and Sidon’ came unto Him’.  They pressed upon Him to touch Him and ‘even unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God’(Mark 2:7-11).

So great was the multitude who were by the sea on the land that the Saviour had to enter a ship to preach to them (Mark 4:1). When they had dispersed, and evening had come, the tiredness had overcome Him and He slept through a violent storm. This is the moment of His humanity that sears my heart. I cannot fathom how intense that three-year mission was for Him as He traversed the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea on foot with no doubt little rest.

And this is the moment when the Saviour showed His saving power. As the storm increased it became obvious to His disciples that it was beyond their power to control the vessel they were in. And this is something significant. They were experienced fishermen who knew how to handle a boat in the storm but they called upon Jesus, the carpenter.

They knew that He was the only answer in an unbeatable storm and there was nowhere else to go. And this is how they knew. When Jesus proclaimed Himself as the bread of life, many of His followers stopped following Him. When Jesus asked the Twelve, “Will ye also go away?”, Simon Peter answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go?.....we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” (John 6:66-69)

 

He arose and rebuked the roaring winds

 and the raging sea.

He, who with His word

caused the earth to be,

Spoke to the Galilean tempest:

“Peace, be still”.

He who has all things

under His command,

Calmed the troubled sea of dismay

in the souls of men.

He, who holds all humanity

in the palm of His hand,

Caused the waves of the sea

to whisper His name.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Coming to Save You by B. Laura Wilson)