A little boy was standing on the shore of a large lake, waving his arms to a ship that was already in full sail. A man came up to him and said, “Don’t be silly! Do you think the ship will change course just because you call it?” But sure enough, the ship turned toward the shore, docked, and took the boy aboard. As the boy climbed aboard, he said to the man, “No, sir, I’m not silly! The captain is my father.”
Let us learn the lesson of this child. Will God, our Father, ignore our cries when we call on Him in faith? If we knew how much our Father longs to fill us with all things and make the seemingly impossible possible, we would not be surprised to see His mighty arm manifested against all hopelessness. On the contrary, we would walk in the assurance that the boy on the shore of the great lake had in the story.
“All things are possible to him who believes” -says the Lord in the Gospel (Mk 9:23), and we know well how insistently He urges us to live on this level of faith and trust. The boy was convinced that his father would come to him. His reasoning is essential: “The captain is my father”.
The same certainty should move us: since God is our loving Father, we can throw ourselves completely into His arms. This is not a blind trust in fate or an optimistic feeling that everything will turn out all right. In difficult and seemingly hopeless situations, this would not be enough to inspire us, nor would it strengthen our faith in the long run. Instead, our faith will become bright and strong if we put our trust in God in a very personal way, knowing that He is our Father and that this Father is infinitely good.
Even in these turbulent times, the Father is still the captain, even if his crew does not do the job assigned.