To lead a significant life

In the book of Matthew we read about a turbulent storm that befell the disciples second Galilee crossing coming “straightway” or immediately after Jesus fed 5000 and just before He healed in Gennesaret “that they might only touch the hem of his garment…….as many as touched were made perfectly whole. (Matthew 14:22,35,36).

No accident , this storm was not only a divine assessment but also a diabolical assault.

That is, God not only sent the storm to test His apostles but the enemy also hoped, however futilely, that it would stop Jesus` growing ministry.

He was storming mad because Jesus was busily blessing God’s people.

Jesus walked about three and one half miles across a rough, vicious body of water before meeting up with His disciples, landing and ministering in Gennesaret.

Of His subsequent ministry there, a question could be posed, “Did these people of Gennesaret, know that Jesus had come through a storm to meet their needs?”

Likely they did not, but we can be sure that His disciples knew it.
They went through the storm and experienced His presence in a marvelous way, both seeing Him walking on the water, and controlling the storm, at its epicenter, understanding that what He did, was done so that He might come to the people across the stormy sea.

Later , after the apostles` healing and preaching ministry resulted in the salvation of 3000 in Jerusalem, another storm beset them.

This however was not a meteorological event, but a religious disturbance, as the Jewish clerics rose to persecute them.

Thus they walked in the masters footsteps, enduring Satan’s stormy opposition because their ministry--rather Christ’s ministry through them--was also blessing many.

The Apostle Paul also walked this way.
He famously encountered and endured many storms of persecution, on land and at sea, in order to disseminate many powerful life-giving, faith nourishing, soul-saving spiritual truths to the early churches.

When Paul arrived in cities to minister, he often did so freshly released from some turbid trouble.
He was harried for two weeks in a life-threatening hurricane, and then shipwrecked, before arriving on the island of Malta where he--or Christ in him--healed many.

Do we realize what Jesus, the apostles, and Paul knew and lived in?

That is, do we understand that if we undertake to prolifically feed God’s people the bread of the Word or minister comfort and healing to their souls and bodies by the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, we will have to walk through great storms at times to do so?

Are we willing to endure those long, dark, dangerous, and wearisome gales of testing to make it through to the “other side” where God’s confused, famished, sick, misled, and despairing children are waiting eagerly to be helped by the ministry of the Son of God through us?

If we are willing to pay the price, God will see to it that they get the blessing.