"Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?" "If there are, we all be dead!"

Thou art my Lord Who slept upon the pillow,
Thou art my Lord Who calmed the furious sea;
What matter beating wind and tossing billow
If only we are in the boat with Thee?

Hold us in quiet through the age-long minute
While Thou art silent and the wind is shrill;
What boat can sink when Thou, dear Lord, art in it?
What heart can faint that resteth on Thy will?

Psa. 107. 29, 30 : He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven.

"Then are they glad because they be quiet;" the words were music to me. Then, in reading the different stories of the Lord calming the sea, I found this: "He cometh...and would have passed by them"--"as if intending to pass them"--"and was wishing to pass by them". The more literal the translation, the more startling it is.

As I ponder the matter I saw that this "age-long minute" was part of the spiritual preparation of these men for a life that at that time was unimagined by them--a life of dauntless faith and witness in the absence of any manifestation of the power of their Lord; and it must be the same to-day. Such minutes must be in our lives, unless our training is to be unlike that of every saint and warrior who ever lived. Our "minute" may seem endless--"How long wilt Thou forget me," cried David out of the depths of his--but perhaps looking back we shall see in such an experience a great and shining opportunity. Words are spoken then that are spoken at no other time, such as the immortal words to John the Baptist, "And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." We have a chance to prove our glorious God, to prove that His joy is strength and that His peace passeth all understanding, and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.

And the "minute" always ends in one way, there is no other ending recorded anywhere: "He talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: It is I; be not afraid...and the wind ceased."

"Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven."

--from The Edges of His Ways, by Amy Carmichael