Unquestioning trust

Mark 6:30-44 tells of Jesus feeding more than 5,000 people with five loaves of  bread and two fish. The very next passage (Mark 6:45-52) tells of Jesus' disciples getting stranded on a boat during a storm. Being stranded during a storm must be a scary experience, but you'd think that, having just witnessed Jesus create matter out of nothing, the disciples would trust Jesus to save them from danger.

Mark 6:52 (KJV) highlights their lack of trust,

They considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

We all struggle with this problem. We intuitively "know" that God -- having created time, space, and matter -- certainly can bend the physical rules of those things in order to establish his will. But somehow we doubt that he will.

As a broader point, a common complain is: How can God allow bad things to happen to his followers. The key, I think, is to realize that, whether we experience joy or pain, God works for the ultimate benefit of his followers. For an extreme example, consider Joseph being sold into slavery. His extremely dire circumstances eventually worked for the benefit of billions of people, including us! But his circumstances didn't seem so hot at the time!

God knows what he's doing, and he asks for our trust. But establishing that type of unquestioning trust is a difficult aspect of faith. I don't have it! But I believe that we can work toward it through prayer.