As my kids have grown older, the Lord has given me more and
more opportunities to talk to them about deeper things, about the precious
lessons my Savior has been teaching me over the years. And, as I share with
them, and look again at these lessons with the simple faith of children, God brings
out new and wonderful truths.
Our oldest, CJ, is a sweet, sensitive little guy. Courage
and confidence do not come naturally to him. But he is learning and he is
growing, and as I have the immense privilege of walking with him on this
journey, I’m learning so much about faith and courage as well.
Recently my husband and I were given a gift of several days
away, a vacation, just the two of us.
CJ does NOT like it when we leave.
And we’d never before left him for that long.
So we prayed for him, long in advance. Prayed for courage
and help for him. Prepared him for it, got him used to the idea. And, in a
tender and teachable moment, I talked to him about it a little more, building
on a story from Scripture we’d talked about recently.
The conversation went a little bit like this.
“CJ, do you remember when the disciples were in the boat in
the storm, and Jesus came walking to them on the water?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember what Peter did?”
“He asked Jesus to let him walk to him.”
“Yep! And when Peter put his foot out of the boat, onto the
water, with the wind blowing and the waves up and down and all over the place,
what happened? Did he sink?”
“No.”
“That’s right. He kept looking at Jesus, and he stayed up.
But when he started to look at everything around him that was so scary, the
wind and the waves, what happened then?”
“He started to sink.”
“It’s the same with us, CJ. When everything around us is
crazy and scary, as long as we keep thinking about Jesus, and keep our eyes on
Him and how big and strong and loving He is, we will be fine. But if we keep
thinking about the scary things, and focus on them, then we’ll sink.”
He nodded, quiet for a moment. I could tell his mind was
working, sorting through these truths once again. After a bit he spoke up.
“But what if I forget?”
With that question, he brought me up short. What if he
forgot? What if, in the terror of the storm, in the midst of the crashing waves
and howling wind, in the distraction of the fear, he forgot to think about
Jesus?
The answer to his simple question was right there, before
us, in the story. And what a
wonderful answer it was. I'd never noticed the precious detail before. The truth of it brought tears to my eyes, both for the
sake of my sweet boy, and for myself, in my faltering, growing, stumbling,
deepening walk with the Lord.
“Well, CJ, what happened to Peter? What happened after he
started to sink?”
“Jesus caught him.”
“Yes! He rescued him! Even when Peter forgot, when he looked
at the wrong thing, even when he started to sink, Jesus still caught him!”
What a glorious truth. We can KNOW the right way to handle a
situation. We KNOW we should be patient, be faithful, be trusting, be loving,
rejoice, lean on His strength and not ours…but sometimes, no matter how hard we
try, we forget.
And still, despite our weakness and failure…
Jesus catches us.
Through the spray of the waves, over the roar of the storm,
in the numbing cold, as we sink, a desperate cry torn from our throats, carried
away in the wind…
We’ll see a hand. Firm and strong. Nail-scarred.
Reaching for us. Grasping us. Lifting us up. Rescuing us.
Peter found this true.
So did the psalmist.
“If I should say, ‘My
foot has slipped,’ Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up.” (Psalm 94:18)
So did the prophet.
“Do not rejoice over
me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will
be a light to me.” (Micah 7:8)
What a wonderful God we serve.
