When the Lord Seems Far Away: Walking Through the Storm

Have you ever waited up through a long night for something? Perhaps you sat beside a hospital bed, watching a loved one's chest rise and fall, glancing at the clock as the hours crawled past. Or maybe you waited for a phone call that would change everything, watching the sky outside slowly shift from black to gray to the first hesitant pink of dawn. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs to such nights, an exhaustion that is not only of the body but of the soul. It is the weariness of waiting in the dark for a light that seems impossibly delayed.

The disciples knew this kind of night. Matthew tells us that Jesus "made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds" (Matthew 14:22).

What follows is one of the most haunting and instructive scenes in the Gospels. The boat is "battered by the waves, far from the land, for the wind was against them" (Matthew 14:24).

And where is the Lord? He is not asleep in the stern, as in the earlier storm of Matthew 8.

He is on a mountain, alone, praying.

The mountain and the sea: there is no greater distance one place can be from another. He is as far away as he can possibly be.

And yet, Matthew tells us, "early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea" (Matthew 14:25). The Greek says it was the "fourth watch of the night," the watch that runs from roughly three in the morning until sunrise. It is the darkest, coldest, most despairing hour. It is the watch in which hope wears thin and the body begins to fail.

It is the hour just before dawn.

 

The Two Storms

The disciples had been here before, but not quite. In Matthew 8, they had also been caught in a storm at sea, but Jesus was with them in the boat. He was sleeping, yes, but he was there. They could shake him awake. They could see his face. The storm was terrifying, but the Lord was within reach.

This second storm is different. This time the Lord is not in the boat. He is on a mountain. He is praying.

He has, from all appearances, withdrawn entirely.

The disciples are alone with the wind and the waves, and the only one who could save them is nowhere to be found.

This pattern is not accidental. There is a movement here that the spiritual masters have long recognized as the very shape of the soul's journey toward God.

In the beginning, the Lord makes himself sweetly present. The new believer, the recent convert, the one who has just discovered prayer, often experiences God as close, tangible, comforting. There are tears at Mass. There is warmth in prayer. Scripture leaps off the page. Even when storms come, the consolation of his nearness is undeniable.

He is sleeping in the boat, but he is in the boat.

But then, at some point, almost everyone who walks seriously with God finds that this changes.

The consolations dry up. Prayer feels like talking to a wall. Mass becomes routine. Scripture seems flat. And the storms, when they come, find us alone. The Lord, it seems, has gone up the mountain. He has withdrawn. He is far away.

This is what the great Carmelite teachers called the dark night. And Saint John of the Cross, who wrote of it most famously, insisted that this apparent absence is not absence at all. It is, in fact, a deeper presence, a presence too pure and too close to be felt by the senses or grasped by the imagination.

The Lord has not abandoned the boat. He sees it from the mountain. He is praying for it. And at the appointed hour, he will come.

 

The Fourth Watch

Why does Jesus wait until the fourth watch? Why not the first? Why does he allow his friends to be tossed about for the better part of a night before he appears?

Saint Augustine, commenting on this passage, suggested that the Lord delays so that our faith may be exercised and strengthened (cf. Sermon 75). A faith that is never tested remains the faith of a beginner. A love that is never stretched remains shallow. Hope that costs nothing is hardly hope at all.

The fourth watch is the hour when our own resources have been spent, when we have rowed all night and gotten nowhere, when we have nothing left but to cry out. It is the hour when faith, hope, and love are no longer ornaments of a comfortable life but the only things keeping us afloat.

The Apostle Paul understood this. "We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:8–9).

Notice the purpose clause: so that we would rely not on ourselves.

The fourth watch teaches us, in the most existential way possible, that we cannot save ourselves. The boat is too small. The sea is too large. The night is too long. Only the Lord who walks on the water can come to us where we are.

 

"It Is a Ghost!"

When Jesus does appear, the disciples do not recognize him. "But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, 'It is a ghost!' And they cried out in fear" (Matthew 14:26).

This is one of the most poignant details in the whole episode. The very thing they have been longing for, the very presence that would save them, terrifies them when it comes. They mistake their salvation for a specter.

This too belongs to the dark night. When God draws near in the depths of our trial, he often does not come in the way we expected. We were looking for the Lord who sleeps in the boat, the Lord of warm consolations and clear answers.

Instead, he comes walking on the very thing that threatens to drown us. He comes in a form that frightens us before it comforts us.

He comes through the storm, not around it.

How many of us, in our suffering, have failed to recognize the Lord because he came to us in a face we did not expect? In a sickness we did not want? In a loss we did not choose? In a silence we could not interpret? "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid" (Matthew 14:27).

The Greek here is striking: egō eimi, "I am." It is the divine name, the same words spoken from the burning bush. The Lord identifies himself with the very name of God, and he says: do not be afraid.

 

Peter's Reckless Love

Then comes Peter, and we love him for what he does next, because it is so utterly Peter. "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water" (Matthew 14:28). There is something magnificent and a little mad about this request.

The other disciples are huddled in the boat. Peter wants to step out into the very thing that has been threatening to kill them.

This is what the dark night does to a soul that perseveres. It produces a reckless love, a faith that is willing to step out of the boat.

Peter would never have dared this on a calm sea. It is precisely the storm, precisely the impossibility, precisely the dark night that draws this audacity out of him. The trial that seemed designed to destroy his faith has instead produced a love that is willing to walk on water.

And then, of course, he sinks. "But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'" (Matthew 14:30).

Peter's faith is real but imperfect. He takes his eyes off the Lord and looks at the wind. He begins to sink.

But notice: even his sinking becomes an act of faith. He does not despair. He does not curse God. He cries out, "Lord, save me!" Three words. The shortest and most perfect prayer of the dark night.

"Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him" (Matthew 14:31).

The word immediately matters. There is no delay now. The hour of waiting is past. The hand that seemed so distant is now closer than the water itself. And Peter, who began the night terrified of a ghost, ends it being lifted up by the very hand of God.

 

The Whole of the Spiritual Life

In this brief episode we have, in miniature, the entire pattern of the spiritual life.

The boat is the soul. The sea is the world with its trials. The night is the long darkness in which the Lord seems absent. The fourth watch is the moment when our own strength fails. The walking on water is the Lord's coming, often in a form we do not at first recognize.

Peter's stepping out is the soul's reckless love, drawn out by the very darkness that seemed to threaten it. The sinking is our human weakness. The cry "Lord, save me!" is the prayer that always reaches him.

And the hand that catches us is grace itself, immediate and sure.

There is no path to spiritual maturity that bypasses this night.

The consolations of the beginning are real and are gifts of God, but they are not the destination. They are the milk given to infants. The dark night is the meat given to those who would grow. And what grows in the night is the only thing that ultimately matters: a faith that does not depend on feeling, a hope that does not depend on circumstances, and a love that does not depend on consolation.

 

Living the Lesson

How, then, do we live this in the ordinary days of our lives?

First, when the Lord seems far away, do not assume he has abandoned you. The mountain and the sea are not as distant as they appear. He sees the boat. He is praying for you. The very fact that you are still rowing, still trying, still longing, is evidence that grace is at work in you.

Second, learn to pray Peter's prayer. "Lord, save me!" When you cannot manage anything more elaborate, when your prayers feel dry and your words feel hollow, these three words are enough. They are perhaps the most honest prayer a human being can pray.

Third, do not be surprised when the Lord comes to you in unexpected forms. He may come walking on the very waves you feared. He may come in a face, a circumstance, a Scripture, a silence that you did not expect. Train your eyes to look for him not only in consolation but in the storm itself.

Fourth, when he calls you to step out of the boat, step. The storms of your life may be the very invitation to a deeper love than you have ever known. The reckless love that walks on water is not produced in calm seas.

And finally, remember that the fourth watch always ends. The night, however long, gives way to morning. "Joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5). The Lord who waits long to appear never fails to appear at last. And when he does, the storm itself becomes the place where you learned, perhaps for the first time, what it means to truly trust him.