Where is your faith?

I just read this statement: "You cannot trust God and be stressed at the same time." (Convicted? I am.) In the storm on the water, when the disciples were anxious and fearing for their lives, Jesus asked them, "Where is your faith?" (Luke 8:25). Their faith was there in the boat - Jesus, the substance of things hoped for (the long awaited Messiah), the evidence of things not seen (the image of the invisible God) - Hebrews 11:1, Colossians 1:15.

The Holy Spirit taught me this lesson while I was in Chile a few years back. I used to go to the ocean shore most nights and sit on one of many boulders, watching the sun set while the powerful waves slapped on the boulders below. One night, the waves weren't the only sound - there was a dog standing on a boulder at the water's edge, barking at the waves. He wouldn't quit! I thought it was hilarious - it was as if this dog thought that by barking he could somehow affect the waves - herd them, corral them, protect the people on the shore from their destructive potential.

Then all of a sudden, I felt God saying to me, "But you do the same thing. You think that by worrying, you can keep life's disasters at bay." I was convicted. I realized that the dog was so focused on the unchangeable force of the waves that he couldn't have taken any notice of the sun in its glorious descent. The disciples were so consumed by their fear of the waves that they forgot the glory of the Son who was with them and His power to overcome. We as God's children are so caught up in our worries about the powers that threaten to destroy us that we forget this fact: "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

The disciples saw Jesus do miracle after miracle - healing the sick, casting out demons, multiplying food. The Israelites saw God do miracle after miracle - parting the Red Sea, providing manna from heaven and water from a rock, defeating their enemies before them. You and I have seen the Holy Spirit do miracle after miracle - [insert your personal testimony here]. Yet we all have a selective memory. We choose to remember the good things we've left to follow Him and the trials we've had to endure since choosing this path. You can't be thankful and stressed at the same time. Stop barking at the waves and lift your eyes. Choose to remember His faithfulness. Focus on the Christ within you. Jesus is the author and perfecter, the very essence, of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Faith is not something you conjure up through your own righteousness - faith is a person. A change in perspective is all that's needed. Where is your faith?