Thursday, February 15, 2007

Faltering Faith

"Beginning to sink, he cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand..." (Matthew 14: 30-31)

When I worry, When I doubt, I need to remember to trust in the Lord.

If my faith starts to falter, If Iwander from Him and start getting lost, I need to remember Peter and ask Christ to save me. Such a short simple prayer.

He'll do it immediately.

Thank you, God.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dennis,

Well, you gave me an excuse to look at Matthew 14:30-31. What I see there is that Peter 'began taking his eyes off of Jesus when he observed a physical danger, the wind. In one sense, this is very comical. How did he image that Jesus was walking on the water? How does he imagine that he had been able to walk on the water previously. Was it that there was no wind? Is wind the thing that prevents us from walking on water?

So, how might I apply this to my 'walk.' Certainly, I am not often on the water, so to speak. Or am I? Aren't I to walk 'in the Spirit.' Isn't everything that I do to be under the control of the Holy Spirit and not my flesh?

So, when I start to 'sink,' is it that I need God to do something? Do I, like Peter, need Him to save me? Could it be that what I need to do once more is to relinquish control back to Him. Don't I have the power to get back out of the way; get off the throne? Isn't He always there and willing to be in control of His children's lives?

On another subject, I was surprised to hear that you wanted to pursue the earlier proposal. I went back and read what I had offered up and must admit to some trepidation. Maybe I am older and wiser now. (Just kidding.) Well, I am game to try; let's give it a go keeping Him in control of it all.

TheDen said...

David W,

To answer your questions…”I don’t know.”

What I see is that Christ commands us to do some things that can be very challenging. If He commands a person to walk on water, that person should have the faith to do it as Christ commanded him.

So many times in our lives, Christ wants something from us and we start to do it but get scared. Oftentimes, our fears are unsubstantiated and irrational. Peter’s fear about the wind, as you point out, had no bearing on why he was walking on water yet he let his fear overcome him and shake his faith in what Christ told him.

And then he started to sink. And then he asked Christ to help him (which He did immediately.)

What I’m saying is that Peter was losing faith in Christ’s words. Christ commanded him to come out of the boat (off of Peter’s challenge) but his fear created doubt and his doubt caused him to sink.

But even when his faith was starting to disappear. Even when doubt crept in, all he had to do was ask for God’s help and it was given to him.

So many times in my life, I’ve been very scared as I discern God’s will for my life. More often than not, it conflicts with my will for my life. I just need to learn to trust Him more. And if I doubt, ask for His help. If we don’t have faith in God, we will die. If we have faith in Him, He will save us.

CPDT said...

Thanks for visiting my blog. I enjoy your reflections on the Scripture. God bless!

CPDT said...

Thanks for visiting my blog...
I enjoy your reflections on Scripture. God bless!