He Was There - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

He saw them straining at rowing He came to them.
Mark 6:48

He Was There
The disciples' need and His love brought Him there. They would have seen Him long before they did had they not been so bent upon their own efforts to bring their boat to port; but when their sailor-skill was baffled and their strength was done, He was there; when they dropped their oars and ceased the struggle, He was there to come into their circumstances and bring His own peace with Him and share it with them, to steer them into a great calm.

It is even so today. His love brings Him swiftly to our relief, not always to change the circumstances—some of them cannot be changed—but to change us, to calm us by His own presence, and to make us more than conquerors by His love. Yet many suffering saints miss all this. And why? Because they will continue to toil in rowing; they will persist in meeting their trials in their own strength, so bent are they on the endeavor to straighten out their tangles and steer their own frail vessel through the stormy seas, that they do not see Him coming to them, walking on the water—the Master of its waves. But their extremity is His opportunity, and when they have no might He becomes their strength, and a sense of His nearness changes all. "He talked with them and said to them, ‘Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.'" And that was enough for them; it is enough for us. Our great Intercessor prays for us, sees us, and comes to us.

These things bring Him near to us because He loves us, and because of this we who are saved by His blood shall be saved by His life. Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we trust and murmur not, are undismayed and triumphant, for He is there where the greatest trial is; and surely He will be to the end.

J. T. Mawson