Today’s Reading is Matthew 14:22 - 33
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. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn 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!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
In the beginning of this text, it seems that Jesus is hurrying people away from him so that he can spend some time alone with the Father. To me Christ is showing his human side, because it seems like he needs to plug into the Lord to gain strength, just as we do each Sunday. He gives us a perfect example of how to handle this in our everyday lives. Instead of going home and burying ourselves in food, TV or some other escape, we should spend time with the Father. Maybe ask for forgiveness for some poor decisions that day, ask for some direction in dealing with a difficult person or just to share with Him. Maybe if we did like Christ and went to prayer with our Lord on the way home we would be able to leave work at work or better yet, with Him. Maybe our home life would become much easier and productive, because we’re giving our complete focus to home through Him.
As I listened to the sermon yesterday, I kept wondering why I only depend on Christ when I need him or it’s convenient for me. I imagine that the reason Peter didn’t sink at first was that his eyes were trying to focus on Christ. Maybe at first Christ was hard to see, but as Peter got closer he could see Christ better. This meant Peter didn’t have to use 100% of his senses to make out Christ’s form, maybe he was just using 80% of his sight and mind, which allowed other outside forces to distract him. Is it possible that as we see the Lord work in our lives, we tend to relax and look elsewhere with the extra 20% of our senses and this is where we get into trouble and don’t give 100% or our mind or heart focus to Him?
Dave P