“Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”

Matthew’s Gospel focuses our attention on the storm that engulfed the disciples’ boat on the sea of Galilee, striking fear in the hearts of the men. In so doing, Matthew emphasizes the importance of prayer in terrifying times of great turbulence such as the nation is experiencing today.

Much of our life is spent, not in tumult, but in the still, calm waters where a tranquil life can lull us into a false sense of being in control of our own destiny. When everything is going well for us, we may sail right along, not bothering to pray. However, when storm winds take us by surprise, panic can set with disastrous results.

I saw a classic example of this last week where the current exhibit at the local science museum is artifacts from the RMS Titanic. At the time of its construction, the ship was the largest man-made moving object on earth; said to be “unsinkable.” On her maiden voyage across the Atlantic, the Captain took the most direct route, hoping to set a speed record. His faith in his own ability led him to ignore warnings from other passing ships as he steered straight for an ice field. When lookouts in the crow’s nest spied an ice berg dead ahead, the helmsman panicked and tried to turn the ship even as he cut power. The ship’s momentum brought her sideways onto the iceberg, which sliced through her like a can opener, claiming 1,517 lives.

On a much smaller scale, I saw another example of what can happen when the person at the helm panics. We were in a friend’s pontoon boat, following in the wake of a large cabin cruiser as it made its way through a “No Wake” zone, a narrow channel connecting two large lakes. Suddenly, we saw another cabin cruiser approaching from the opposite direction. Only ten feet of clearance separated the two huge boats. The helmsman in front of us panicked and throttled back his engines. That was a big mistake.

Without the power needed to maintain momentum, his boat lost steerage and the helmsman lost control. He wrestled with the unresponsive wheel as his boat wallowed in the wake of the small boat in front of him, then his cabin cruiser fish-tailed right into the path of the oncoming cruiser. The two large vessels collided with a blow that damaged both gunwales and the pride of both skippers. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

On witnessing the accident, I was struck by the fact that once fear took the helm, the huge cabin cruiser lost momentum, it was at the mercy of the slightest turbulence. It seems to me the same thing can happen in our spiritual life. We need the steadying power of daily prayer in the “No Wake” zones as well as the hidden shoals and ice flows of life because we never know for sure what’s coming at us from the opposite direction. Like the disciples in today’s Gospel, we need to turn to Jesus and ask Him to steer us through life’s troubled waters.