“When they had rowed three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.”- John 6:19
“What the eye sees is determined by what the brain has learned.”- Richard Restak
In Chapter 16 (“The Water Walker”) of The Grave Robber, Mark Batterson observes that the Sea of Galilee is the setting for many of Jesus’ miracles. The fifth miracle, Jesus walking on water, may be the most astonishing. Pastor Batterson calculates that Jesus’ walk covered at least three and a half mile, lasting at least seventy minutes at an average walking pace of three miles per hour.
When the disciples saw Jesus walking toward them, they were frightened. They couldn’t make sense of the situation. They had no prior memory to associate with what they were seeing. As Mark notes, our natural tendency is to explain away what we cannot explain because we have no cognitive category for it. While we think we have to see it to believe it, Mark stresses that the opposite has even more truth: you have to believe it to see it.
Mark concludes that spiritual and intellectual pursuits are not mutually exclusive endeavors. He states:
“Great love is born of great knowledge. And the more you know, the more you know about 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 to get out of the boat.”
Today’s question: When you consider revisioning and revitalizing your calling, what do you need to believe in order to see it? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Embrace the mystery”
