One of my favorite trust building activities is when people are paired and one of the persons acts as the “catcher” and the other person is the “fall-er”.  The person who is falling has to fall backwards into the arms of the “catcher”, trusting that he or she will be caught.  There is something thrilling about the idea of going into a free fall, letting yourself go and trusting that you will not hit the ground, even though you are falling.

I am absolutely stupefied by what I have recently come to appreciate about Peter’s experience of using his faith to get out of the boat and walk on the water towards Jesus.  There are so many brilliant revelations in this illustration.  The central idea of focus in this blog is to highlight that:

“…When he (Peter) 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 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.”

To those of you familiar with the story, had you ever noticed that Peter was so close to Jesus that when he cried for help, Jesus just reached out his hand to catch him?  I’m comforted to know that it is possible to be that close to Jesus and still face the threat of sinking, falling, and failure.

I’m also relieved to know that I’m not the only one who has been right at the point of experiencing the miracle or obtaining the thing I had hoped for and absolutely feel like it is slipping right out of my hands.  To have great faith to pursue it and then all of the sudden start listening to the negative voices that make you doubt whether you can really posses your hope.  Or have you ever experienced that nagging anxiety that tells you, you don’t belong here and eventually people are going to discover you are a fraud.  That’s what sinking even though you’ve already walked on the water feels like.

It is profound that Peter’s faith was substantial enough to walk on water, which one would think would be the hardest part, but his faith was lost when he had to stand, amidst the storm. 

We probably underestimate the power of faith it takes to stand amidst the chaos.  This scripture tells me that the faith it takes you to DO the miraculous and the impossible is not necessarily the SAME faith you need to SUSTAIN the miraculous and operate in the impossible. The scripture indicates that when Peter took his focus off of Christ (the person He was becoming) and put his focus on the conditions that was the moment he started slipping and losing his footing. I think that’s a really important concept as many of us begin to realize the thing we had hoped for or the BIG dream we have.  Never lose site of who you are BECOMING to consider the troubling storm and conditions around you.

One more thing…I love that once they have had enough of the water-walking experience, Jesus takes Peter back to the boat! That tickles me for some reason. I mean you already walking on the water and moreover, the troubling storm had just ceased, but you go back “into the boat”…back into the thing you had to climb out of to take the risk.  I guess I would say about that, it really is about knowing your potential, exercising faith even if you plan to use conventional means to get where you are going. You know that if you WANTED to…you could just WALK ON WATER to get there.

But it’s not really about the mechanism of travel, it’s about getting in touch with who you are becoming.