One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22-25)
The connection between the Beatitudes and our lack of faith is HUGE!!! And Jesus taking his disciples through a storm in their boat was a prime illustration of how God builds up our faith by exposing our unbelief.
What I call “the Beatitudinal Valley”, or “the Beatitudinal Journey”, is my summary of the eight Beatitudes Jesus presented to introduce what we call his “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1-12). Here’s what they look like in a boatload of disciples going through a storm with Jesus.
The first Beatitude in this valley is a step down into “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” It should be noted that this is the first thing we will see God doing when he is blessing someone, he leads them to know their poverty of spirit.
In this case, we can see how Jesus was blessing his disciples by letting them see the true condition of their faith. This was likely in preparation for what they would be required to do not long after this, and it may have been a way to keep the men humble about their distinctive place in his ministry.
As the blessing of our poor-in-spiritness settles into our souls, it leads to the blessing of “Blessed are those who mourn…” Contrary to the prideful heart that wants to fix whatever poverty of spirit it sees, the blessing of God leads us deeper into some honest mourning about our condition.
In other words, while today’s trend with children is to try and keep them from feeling anything bad about themselves, God blesses us by leading us to sincerely mourn things in our lives that are not like him. And there is something about us lacking faith that makes us quite different than Jesus.
The blessing of mourning whatever is wrong with us leads deeper into a state of “Blessed are the meek…” This is where we know there is no way we can fix whatever poor-in-spirit area of our lives we are looking at, and so, instead of trying to do better, we turn to Jesus in surrender to his shepherdly authority to lead us into his Father’s will.
And as we surrender to Jesus to help us, we find ourselves in the blessedness of “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” because we find ourselves now longing for the very thing we don’t have. In this case, Jesus is using his disciples to point out any ways we lack faith, and showing how he uses storms to expose such things helps us look at what is happening in our lives to see if he is doing something similar.
The upside of the Beatitudinal Valley leads into “Blessed are the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” but the primary focus of the disciples in the storm is how Jesus was blessing them on the downside of the Beatitudinal Valley to humble them in the area of their lives that mattered the most, their faith.
I hope this encourages you to be honest about your soul-condition, particularly in how you feel God would address your faith (or lack of faith). I believe the Beatitudes show us how the only way we can grow in our faith is by agreeing with Jesus when he asks us where our faith was when we didn’t trust him with something.
And the disciples' request of, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5) is a very good example of how we will grow in faith once we admit we need to do so.
To encourage us to admit we have weak faith, don’t forget how Paul instructed the church, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Romans 14:1). This shows that people who are weak in faith should feel as welcome in the church as anyone else, but with the guidance that focuses on how to grow in faith, not how to win quarrels (there is a big lesson in that about the people in our churches who love to quarrel and what it says about their faith!).
And here’s a word from Jude who was an earthly brother to Jesus but had to come to faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He exhorts us,
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt…” (Jude 1:20-22).
That shows us that we must strive to build up our assemblies of believers in our faith while being merciful to those who doubt because we know how much mercy we received to give us whatever faith we have attained. And if we are the ones who struggle with doubt, Jesus’ church should be the safest and most loving place to admit it, and to be built up by those whose faith is stronger than ours. And that should be true no matter what storms of impossible situations we go through.
© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
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