Sometimes following Jesus doesn’t feel like progress.

We obey. We keep showing up. We have the difficult conversation. We keep praying. We stay faithful to the relationship or responsibility God has placed in front of us. And instead of things getting easier, it feels like we’re rowing into the wind.

That’s where the disciples find themselves in Mark 6.

Jesus tells them to get into a boat and go to Bethsaida. They obey Him. Then the wind turns against them, and for hours they strain at the oars without getting where Jesus told them to go.

It would have been easy to assume something had gone wrong.

But they weren’t struggling because they had wandered outside God’s will. They had obeyed Jesus right into the storm.

That distinction matters. We can easily assume that resistance means we’ve missed God somewhere along the way. Sometimes, though, following Jesus really does feel like rowing into the wind. Faithfulness doesn’t always produce immediate results, and obedience doesn’t always feel like progress.

Even harder, Jesus can seem absent in those moments.

But Mark includes one small detail we shouldn’t miss: Jesus saw them straining at the oars.

They couldn’t see Him, but He could see them.

And eventually, Jesus comes to them by walking across the very thing they’ve been fighting all night. The water they can’t control is underneath His feet. Yet when they see Him, they’re terrified because they don’t recognize Him.

Maybe that’s one of the challenges of difficult seasons. We become so focused on getting out of the storm that we can miss what Jesus wants to show us about Himself in it.

Before Jesus calms the storm around the disciples, He speaks to the storm inside them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

The greatest promise of this story isn’t that every storm will disappear if we hold on long enough. It’s that we are never alone in one.

Sometimes Jesus shows us a way around the storm. Sometimes He leads us through it. But in both, He is forming our ability to recognize Him—to remember what He has already shown us and trust that the circumstances overwhelming us have never overwhelmed Him.

So when obedience feels exhausting and progress seems nonexistent, don’t assume Jesus has abandoned you.

Keep rowing. Keep remembering. And keep looking closely.

He might be closer than you think.

Reflection Questions

1. Where in your life are you trying to faithfully obey Jesus but currently feel like you’re “rowing into the wind”?
2. When circumstances become difficult, what past evidence of Jesus’ faithfulness do you need to remember instead of assuming you’re on your own?
3. What might change if, instead of only asking Jesus to remove your current storm, you also asked Him to help you see Him more clearly in the middle of it?