A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his
book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (pp. 175-176). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle
Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
Mark is looking in this section of his book of
the experience of the apostles out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and the
miracle of Jesus walking on the water. They had never seen someone walking on
water and so there was no way that their mind would come up with that as a
fact. They first thought He was a
ghost. And wouldn’t that be true of you
and me? My first thought wouldn’t be
that Jesus would be walking on the water.
I haven’t seen it so it can’t be true.
So I must downgrade my theology to match my experience of reality.
Here is what Mark says leading up to this
thought, “We have a natural tendency to explain away what we cannot explain.” He then says, “The reason many of us miss the
miracles that are all around us all the time is because we don’t have a prior
memory to associate with them.”
Mark is looking in this section of his book of
the experience of the apostles out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and the
miracle of Jesus walking on the water. They had never seen someone walking on
water and so there was no way that their mind would come up with that as a
fact. They first thought He was a
ghost. And wouldn’t that be true of you
and me? My first thought wouldn’t be
that Jesus would be walking on the water.
I haven’t seen it so it can’t be true.
So I must downgrade my theology to match my experience of reality.
Mark also says, “I believe that every ology is a branch of theology… While we
tend to think of spiritual and intellectual pursuits as mutually exclusive
endeavors, that’s a false dichotomy. Great love is born of great knowledge. And
the more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know. True knowledge
doesn’t puff up with pride. It humbles us until we hit our knees in worship. It also beckons us out of the boat.”
We don’t have within us the ability to really
comprehend who God is and what He really can do and really wants to do. But we can hunger to know more and then to
really trust more. You see this life with
God is a life of faith and as Hebrews 11: 1 (NIRV) says, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we
do not see.”
Let’s not downgrade but expand the untold wonders of our faith. We really can’t comprehend who God is or what
He can do but we can love Him and believe in Him and worship Him and let Him
walk on our waters and get out and walk with Him.
So would you like to get out of the boat and do some walking?
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