Walking on Water

Here’s a great story in Matthew 14: 24-32.  It was the fourth watch of the night, sometime between three and six in the morning. A boatload of apostles, under Jesus’ instruction to “go to the other side” many hours earlier, have made it only halfway because the wind kicked up and the waves have been tossing their boat around like a toy, impeding their progress. The Sea of Galilee was like that.  Calm one minute, treacherous the next. All of a sudden the apostles spot a man walking on the water.  “A ghost!” they cry in fear, for what else could it be?

But it’s Jesus’ familiar voice that rings back, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.”  And it’s Peter who responds by asking Jesus to tell him to come walk on the water, too. When Jesus does, Peter gets out of the boat, and what do you know!  He really does walk on water, that is until he takes his eyes off Jesus and once again notices the boisterous winds and tossing sea, and then he starts sinking. 

What a lesson!  In this tempest tossed-world, with storms all around us to impede our progress, we don’t have to drown in our circumstances.  We can actually walk on these troubled waters, but only if we keep our eyes on Jesus.  The minute we take our eyes off Him and put them on our troubles, we’ll start sinking. There’s no doubt in my mind that had Peter kept his focus on Jesus he would have walked all the way across the sea to the other side.   Instead, Jesus had to pull the drenched Peter out of the water and into the boat. And I’m sure Peter’s heart broke a little when Jesus admonished him with, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst though doubt?”

Most of us want to do what Jesus has instructed us to do.  But as the world becomes more unstable, and circumstances more trying, it’s easy to allow fear to enter. And when it does we have two choices: Do we keep our eyes on Jesus and allow Him to take us through? Or do we concentrate on our circumstances and allow them to overwhelm us?  I think we’re going to have many opportunities in the days and weeks and months ahead to answer that for ourselves.

Until next week,

Sylvia