According to our natural way of thinking, “Seeing is believing.” Yet, in some of the most important areas of life (like marriage), or even the highest levels of academic inquiry (astrophysics), we have to begin with faith or trust before we enter into deeper knowledge and understanding. It turns out, “Believing is seeing.” What you believe determines what you can see. When it comes to the miracles of Jesus, it is not just about what he can do, but who he is.

Mark says the “utterly astounded” disciples “did not understand the miracle of the loaves because their hearts were hardened” (6:52). Their hard hearts did not believe, and they had missed something in the feeding of the 5,000 that would have helped them wrap their heads around Jesus walking on the sea. What they missed was that the miracle of the loaves was not just Jesus flexing his divine muscles, but revealing his person. He is the LORD—the Shepherd of Israel who gathers them, delivers them, and feeds his sheep that were “scattered because there was no shepherd” (Ezek 34:5-6).

Likewise, as Jesus walked on the sea, he was revealing himself to his disciples. He “meant to pass them by” (v. 48) not in the sense of avoiding them, but as the LORD who “passed by” Moses in Exodus and Elijah in 1 King 19. As Job says of God, “He trampled on the sea…Behold, he passes me by” (Job 9:4, 11). Jesus walking on the sea is like the totality of an eclipse allowing us to look directly at the sun; God was revealing his glory in the person of Jesus Christ.

Humans are made to know God intimately, personally, and fully. Here Jesus gave the disciples (and us) a glimpse or taste of the glory and presence of the God we long to know, but you can’t see him or receive him without faith because “believing is seeing.”

As you read Scripture and live your life this week, ask the Lord to help you believe so you can see how he is at work all around us.