A popular hymn begins, “O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hand has made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed…”  The force of the storm and power of nature has prompted awe in human beings from the earliest times.  Here is a force we cannot control.  Yet the God who reveals himself in Scripture is not himself a ‘force of nature’ but lies behind everything that exists.  In our first reading Elijah discovers the voice of God not in the wind, earthquake or fire but a gentle breeze.  In the Gospel the disciples are afraid – their small boat beset by a gale – but Jesus appears to them walking across the water.  As he gets into the boat the wind drops.  The disciples bow down before him and say, “Truly, you are the Son of God!”  This incident prepares the way for Peter’s confession of faith and for the special glimpse of glory granted to Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration.