When you stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worrying to watching. You watch God weave his patterns in the story of your life. Instead of trying to be out front, designing your life, you realize you are inside God’s drama. As you wait, you begin to see him work, and your life begins to sparkle with wonder. You are learning to trust again.
– Paul E. Miller in A Praying Life
I’m writing a story called ‘Storms’. Jesus rebuked the disciples for not having faith in their storm and then ‘He’ calmed it. But with Paul, even though the more he prayed the more his storm intensified, he was not rebuked.
After a careful look at both stories, I’m not sure the rebuke had anything to do with the disciples not being able to calm the storm, but more due to a lack of trust that they would be okay in it. It was like Jesus grew weary of their crying and stopped it.
But with Paul, his praying lead him to believe that they would be okay, even though they would run aground on some island. Paul had faith to believe it, thus no need for rebuke.
He had learned to trust.