Walking on the Water

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Every time I read the story of Jesus walking on the water, I'm fascinated! It's an incredible story and so many books have been written about it alone including John Ortberg's best seller, "If You Want To Walk On Water, You Have To Get Out Of The Boat". (Awesome book by the way.)

But while it's often looked at as a story of one of Jesus' miracles, the real power in the story for me is not about Jesus, but about watching Peter. In other words, the question this story answers is not "Does Jesus have power?", but "Can the power of God impact ME, in my life?" Watching Peter step out of the boat and walk on the water with Jesus... the answer is "Yes" and the story provides clear perspectives on what we must do to receive that power.

Many of those perspectives are obvious and have been discussed before, such as:

• You have to be willing to step out in faith (get out of the boat)
• You have to keep your eyes on Jesus only.
• Etc.

But a different one hit me today. You have to always be looking for Jesus in your situations. The scripture tells us that Jesus "... saw his disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them." (Mk 6:48) In other words, they were in a fierce struggle for their lives and were simply focused on surviving it. However, in the midst of the storm, Jesus came walking. Actually, the Bible account tells us that "He was about to pass by them..." when they saw him, and if they hadn't looked up, they might have missed it.

Sometimes, we struggle in life and it's hard to understand why? Even though we've been faithful to trust in Him in our lives, we find ourselves "straining at the oars" to stay afloat. At those times, no matter how hard we look for answers, try to find ways out of the situation or rationalize the reasons, we need to always be checking the horizon for Jesus. This story gives us peace that He knows our struggle and that if we seek Him, He will come, even if it's not until the "fourth watch of the night".

Whatever you're struggling and straining with in your life, don't let Jesus pass you by... keep your eyes on the horizon, and get ready to climb out of the boat.