We often shoot off prayer flares, prayers prayed out of panic. We swiftly send out a prayed SOS in frightening situations, in hopes that God will speedily come to our rescue the instant He sees our prayed distress signal frantically shot into the sky. However, prayer flares are not prayers of faith, but faithless prayers prayed out of fear.

The disciples shot off a prayer flare when they found themselves caught on the stormy sea with the sleeping Savior (Luke 8:22-25). Although neither the raging storm nor tempestuous sea awakened the sleeping Christ, He was awakened by the cry of His disciples. Although He immediately calmed the storm and the sea, He afterward rebuked His disciples, by asking them, “Where is your faith?” 

If Christ is with us, He who can calm every storm of life and command even the wind and the sea, then, why should we be frightened in any situation? Truly, prayer flares are not prayers of faith in the ever-present (omnipresent) and all-powerful (omnipotent) Christ, but panic-stricken prayers prayed in doubt by those deeming themselves to be in dire distress. True faith, on the other hand, sits still with Christ in the fiercest storms of life, even if the Savior seems to be sleeping through them.

Are you a calm soul kept confident in every calamity of life by the promise of Christ’s perpetual presence with you? Or are you a frightened and faithless soul who starts shooting off prayer flares at the first sight of a dark cloud, the faintest sound of distant thunder, and the slightest disturbance of a little breeze.