The waves were beating into the boat.
Jesus was asleep on a pillow near the stern while the disciples faced a storm they could not control. Water was coming aboard, and they woke Him with a question that carried more than fear of drowning.
“Master, carest thou not that we perish?”
Did He care?
He arose, rebuked the wind, and spoke to the sea.
“Peace, be still.”
The wind ceased. A great calm settled over the water. Then Jesus asked them why they were so fearful and how it was that they had no faith.
The disciples had seen enough rough water to recognize a storm. What they had just witnessed left them asking what manner of man stood among them, that even the wind and sea obeyed Him.
The One who had been sleeping on the pillow had authority over everything threatening their lives.
His sleep was real. His authority was real.
That is the wonder of Jesus Christ walking among us. He became fully human while remaining fully God. He knew weariness, hunger, thirst, and pain. The eternal Son entered our human life without surrendering His divine nature.
Hebrews tells us that He upholds all things by the word of His power.
Think about that alongside the pillow in the boat.
We grow tired and have to set things down. Our hands can carry only so much. Our attention gives out somewhere between the third demand and the telephone ringing again.
The Son of God could sleep in His humanity while continuing to uphold creation in His deity. The universe remained dependent upon Him through every moment of His earthly life.
The ultimate Creator never dropped the reins of the universe to walk our dirt.
John gives us another glimpse of that wonder at Jacob’s well.
Jesus was weary from His journey. He sat by the well, and a Samaritan woman came to draw water. He asked her for a drink.
The request surprised her. He was a Jew; she was a Samaritan woman. Their conversation crossed a divide she recognized immediately.
Soon He was speaking to her about the gift of God and living water.
The weary traveler knew her life. He spoke truth about her marriages, answered her question about worship, and identified Himself as the Messiah she expected.
The One through whom all things were made had time to speak with one woman beside a well.
His majesty reached into an ordinary human encounter. His knowledge of her life came with an offer of life.
We sometimes imagine that God must be too occupied with the universe to concern Himself with us. We picture our prayer arriving behind a mountain of more pressing business.
That picture comes from knowing how easily we get overwhelmed.
God’s care is greater than our capacity to picture it. The existence of galaxies places no strain upon His ability to hear a frightened person pray. Another person’s need takes nothing away from His knowledge of yours.
Hebrews invites us to approach the throne of grace because our High Priest understands our weakness. Jesus experienced temptation without sin. He knows the weight of human suffering from within a genuinely human life.
We can bring Him the fear we struggle to admit, the grief we cannot explain, and the need we cannot meet.
The answer belongs to His wisdom. Our place is to trust Him, listen to Him, and follow where He leads.
The disciples woke Him asking whether He cared. The woman at the well encountered a stranger who knew her and offered living water.
Both encounters bring His greatness close enough for us to see.
The Savior who walked our dusty roads still upholds all things. His power gives us reason to trust Him; His compassion gives us courage to come.
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:” —Hebrews 1:3
—Jeff Wager
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