Orig: 12/13/02
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
We just got back from a much anticipated vacation to San Luis Obispo County. Though we have lived in McMinnville for the past eight years SLO will always be home. One thing we anticipated above all others was to finally see the sun, but much to our chagrin when we arrived Oregon had met us there! It actually rained four inches on day two of our vacation. It felt like we sat inside most of the trip except the one few times we defied the weather to walk down to a familiar cove (it was closed due to hazardous conditions), run on the beach (but four creeks flowing into the ocean made running a damp to say the least), and followed the path of my old prayer walk around Baywood (I actually found an arrowhead).
To top it all off I got the stomach flu on the way home, which I am still recovering from as I type this entry. I need a vacation from my vacation!
Have you ever had a vacation, dream or relationship that fell horribly short of your expectations? Unfortunately we live in a world where marriages fail, lives become sick, men lose their jobs, the fish aren’t biting, and people disappoint. I wish I had a dollar for every time a storm of life washed away something I anticipated.
The storms of life have the ability to wash our hopes, dreams and expectations like a winter storm land slide. The clouds of adversity stand as obstacles in the way of the warming rays of the sun. The rain pelts us continually with myriad drops of resistance. The drops of adversity blind our eyes to the reality of our dreams. The shores of sin wash away the dreams we hoped for. Forward motion in achieving our dreams is slowed to a crawl because “the wind was against it (24).”
No matter what a man does or how high the guard rails are around his life sometimes he cannot do enough to keep the rain from blinding his eyes. It is in these storms that he is tempted to lose focus of the other side of the lake where our dreams anticipate our arrival. If a man allows, the storms of life will cloud his anticipation of Jesus to intervene on hid behalf.
Sometimes a man cannot imagine that the Savior has the power to still even THIS storm.
It is then that his trust turns to fear and his fear turns from Jesus. He feels the stinging rain, forceful wind and terrifying waves more than ever. Just as the disciples, he stops expecting Jesus to calm the storm but this doesn’t hinder the work of Christ in a man’s life. It only hinders a man’s ability to see it clearly (Ephesians 1:18).
Fighting against the wind and the waves, the last person the disciples expected to see in the early hours of the morning was Jesus walking on water. But there He was, in their face challenging them to face their fears. There He is when we expect Him the least, and fear for our lives the most. We struggle to understand how those nail-scarred hands can hold every drop of our deepest fears until we hear, “"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
