In Greek the disciples’ cry is compressed into just a few words: Lord, save, we are perishing. This is not a prayer composed in advance. It is the prayer you scream. They do not even specify what they want to be saved from. The verb “perishing” is in the present tense; they believe it is already happening. We are going down right now.
Remember who is shouting. At least four of these men, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, were professional fishermen who had worked this lake their whole lives. When men like that are terrified, the storm is real. And when every skill they possessed as sailors ran out, they turned to a carpenter from Nazareth. That is remarkable. They had seen enough of Jesus to know that when your options are gone, you go to him.
Their prayer is a mixture. “Lord” is a confession of who he is. “Save” is an expression of hope. “We are perishing” is despair. Faith and fear are tangled together in a single breath. Many of us know that kind of prayer, the kind that sounds more like the father in Mark 9:24: “I believe; help my unbelief!” Matthew does not clean this prayer up, and neither does Jesus refuse it. Notice too that Matthew’s wording is the language of the Church’s worship. The cry “Lord, save” is the cry of every sinner who has ever come to Christ. It is not an eloquent prayer, but it is a true one, and it is addressed to the right person.