Page 26 - Back to Bethlehem

pray.” We have no idea what Jesus was praying. Maybe He was
praying that they would pass the test. They had a great ministry
that day and maybe Jesus was praying for them. Maybe He was
praying for the people He fed that day. Maybe He was just
having fellowship with His Holy Father God. We do know that
Jesus was praying and that at three o’clock in the morning He
looked out and He saw them. The Bible says that He saw them
struggling at the oars.

I’m suggesting that Jesus on the mountain praying is pure
faith because you can’t see Him. “We walk by faith and not by
sight.” Jesus was on the mountain praying, very much like today
as He’s in heaven praying and we’re on a stormy sea.

Jesus gave a clear word, Mark 6:45, “And immediately
He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to
the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the
multitude away.” They had a word that Jesus would meet them
on the other side. Hebrew 11 talks about “faith is the evidence
of things not seen”. In this first scene Jesus is invisible but He
knows everything that is going on. He sees them and He’s
praying and when He sees them struggle, He walks upon the
water.

It’s not easy to trust a God that you can’t see. So, they
failed that part. If they had called upon the Lord, they would
have learned the lesson of the loaves. Let me remind you about
the lesson of the loaves. Though it doesn’t feel like much and it
doesn’t look like much, if I keep coming back to Jesus, at the end
of the day I will see that I had more than enough for me and
thousands like me. That’s the lesson. They didn’t call on the
Lord when they were rowing. They didn’t talk to one another
and say, “We better not fail this test.” I don’t even think they
were thinking about the miracle of the loaves. They were self-
conscious. They are storm conscious. They are thinking about
their circumstance. They aren’t thinking, “Oh, we’ve got to
remember what He taught us when He fed five thousand.”