Today’s Gospel reading is a familiar story: Jesus sends His disciples off to cross the Sea of Galilee while He prays alone.  When Jesus is finished praying, He walks across the surface of the Sea towards the disciple’s boat, which is being tossed about in a violent storm.  The disciples do not recognize Jesus and are afraid of what they believe to be a ghost.  Even after Jesus reassures them, they doubt; Peter challenges Jesus to allow him to walk on the Sea just as Jesus is doing.  Jesus tells Peter to come, and he’s doing fine so long as he stays focused on Jesus.  He gets into trouble when his focus strays from Jesus, but he is saved when he calls to Jesus for help.

God is always with us, both in times of high drama symbolized by the dramatic events shown to Elijah in the first reading as well as when things are calm (the tiny whispering that Elijah heard).  Many of us tend to get caught up in our busy lives and fail to recognize God with us daily; we fail to hear the soft whisperings.  Then, when things get rough and the seas get stormy, we call upon God for help. Learning to keep our focus on God daily will help us to avoid the stormy seas in our lives (the ones we create ourselves) and help us weather the bad times we encounter that are out of our control.  We live in challenging times, and indeed many things are out of our control.  God wants us to trust Him; to stay focused on Him in the good times as well as the bad.