Faith

Matthew 14:28-31 (NLT)
28 Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.” 29 “Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the strong[d] wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. 31 Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”

This is the familiar story of Jesus walking on the water towards the disciples who are in a boat fighting the wind and waves. The disciples could not believe what they saw and feared it was an apparition coming towards them. But when Peter heard the voice of Jesus he went over the side of the boat and towards Jesus. However fear or loss of trust took hold of Peter and he began to sink.


Over the holidays my wife and I traveled to Savannah. We knew the address of where we were going and plugged it into the GPS. As it usually does, the GPS gave instructions we followed to arrive at our destination. This particular GPS has a feature that will route you around troubled traffic areas. Sometimes you wonder what the GPS is doing as it starts giving instructions to take a detour, but just about the time you start detouring you see all the traffic stopped ahead and you are glad the GPS knows what it is doing. As my wife and I were driving home listening to the GPS giving step by step instructions my wife said, “We sure place a lot of trust in the GPS getting us to where we want to go. We listen to what it says. We follow the directions. When it presents unexpected turns we listen and still follow.“ Then she made the most important statement, “Isn’t it a shame we don’t always trust God to direct our lives like we trust our GPS.” What a true statement. Like Peter we know what we want to do or where we want to go but we don’t always look to God for the directions or listen when we hear what He has to say.