Matthew 14:28 - 31
And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it's you, bid me to come unto you on the water. And he said, "come". And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, o you of little faith, why did you doubt?"
So often we begin our journeys with much enthusiasm and faith. Either as new Christians, or as people who have been Christians for a while who begin a new year or a new season of their lives.
We start off radical and excited. Much like I imagine Peter was when he saw Jesus walking on water and he thought, "I also want to do that".
We start off passionate and wanting to save the world. And so with this passion and faith we take bold steps out of our boats, our own comfort zones, to pursue what we believe God wants us to pursue.
And then somewhere in the middle of the journey things start getting tough when the storms of life begin to rage.
During this time we are faced with challenges and unexpected things happen which catch us off-guard that begin to threaten our ability to achieve the goals we wanted to reach.
Even Peter experienced this. In the middle of his journey, while he was walking on water, a storm erupted and caught him off-guard. This brings fear into Peter's heart, and he begins to be filled with doubt, and the doubt filters through his heart so much that he totally forgets about Christ and begins to sink.
This is no different from what usually happens when we ourselves are faced with our own challenges. These challenges bring fear into our hearts and slowly the fear starts quenching our faith, and we begin to focus more on our issues than on the faith that we had in God when we first embarked on our journeys.
What Peter does when he begins to sink is that he calls on to Jesus and asks him to save us. Showing us what we need to do when we begin to feel like we are drowning in our journey of life. When everything that we were previously passionate about becomes a burden and begins to swallow us up.
We only need to call on the name of Jesus and He will immediately, as He did with Peter, stretch out His hand and save us.
We learn from this scripture that waiting to sink before you summon God for help is actually faithlessness, because after Jesus saves Peter He says, "O ye, of little faith. Why did you doubt?". Peter clearly did not begin to sink because of the storm, but because He lost His faith in Christ.
Therefore, to avoid sinking in the first place, it is important that we do not ever doubt God's ability to fulfill His purpose in our lives, no matter how strong the storms of life are.
Walking on water requires that we have faith to believe that God will bring to completion the work that He has started in us. This means that every desire we have to change the world, to build His kingdom and to transform our lives in the process will become a reality by the power of God.
We were born to walk on water the whole entire way and not to sink somewhere in the middle.
May your faith in God be restored, no matter what storms you face in your life.
May you have the courage to trust that He is still busy with your life, that He has not left you alone in the middle of the ocean.
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