Dear God,
Nothing on this earth ever stays the same. Skin sags. Wrinkles get more crinkled. Bones become brittle. Eyes fill with tears and dry with celebration. Lord, I want to be in control. I hate change sometimes even if it’s for the better. It’s scary to encounter the unknown, so don’t leave my side. Stay with me on this path. I need light in the darkness. I need hope to keep going. I need You to be who You are: exactly as You’ve always been.
Love,
Grace
What I Want:
I crave stability. I crave safety. I crave the known. I crave what I can never have because it’s not found on this earth. Chaos is here. Difficulty is here. Tears are here. My deepest desires will have to be on hold until I go to heaven, but right now, I can have the same God from the beginning of creation. There is so much comfort to me in knowing that. As hard as I try, I’ll never be able to keep things as they are. I can’t stop the Fall from coming. The wind blows where it will go. Financial hardships. Tough tests. Friendships falling out. Miscommunications. Mistakes. Regrets. It is overwhelming if I look at the storms.
What God does in Storms
How scary is it to walk on water, period? Never been done before. How about in the middle of the night when the waves are crashing hard and the wind is against you? Why doesn’t Jesus go on easy mode for us? Why does He ask us to go out when it’s scary? But that’s the thing about faith and trust, it doesn’t happen when it’s easy breezy (literally). It happens in the dark. It happens when you’ll drown if God doesn’t come through. It takes a risk. It takes nothing short of a miracle to pull you through.
It’s easy to pray and hope for things that don’t really mean much to you in the first place. What is the cost if you don’t get that parking spot? But what if it’s your mom’s health? Your house mortgage. Your kids’ future and safety. Your livelihood. Your relationship.
God asks us to walk on water in these moments.
When Peter takes that first step does his foot sink? What if he’s wrong about Jesus? What if he bet his entire life on a lie? What if God fails him? What if God fails you? A million questions don’t stop him from stepping off what he knows, the boat, and onto the water, the unknown. But on the water only is he closer to Jesus. Only on the water can we see what Jesus is not only capable but willing to do.
Jesus: just a good teacher, a proverbial leader, or a humanitarian. No, Jesus is Lord. Jesus our Savior. We talk so much about how we belong to Jesus, but Jesus belongs to us. Jesus willingly gives us the right to claim Him as our Rescuer.
When Peter felt himself drowning, no disciple, no act of man, no willpower or self-manifesto could help him. “Lord, save me!” and it almost sounds like a demand. To me, it sounds like Peter’s not asking, and I love that so much. I love that we don’t have to ask, tell Jesus to save you. You know why? Because He comes. He doesn’t just talk the talk. Jesus walks the walk on water.
When Jesus reached his hand out, do you know how close they had to be? Peter didn’t walk a step and slipped. He had been walking for a while. He had crossed a good chunk of that lake (seemingly) on his own. Sometimes, God calls us to Himself and lets us walk it out until we come across a point where we can only finish with His help. Only an act of God can bring us out of the watery grave.
But Peter was so close to Jesus that He could reach out and grab him. I want to be that close to Jesus that when I cry out, Jesus can immediately grab me. It didn’t say Jesus had to walk over. It didn’t say Jesus was too far to hear him. It didn’t say the waves or winds kept Jesus from coming. Jesus was right there when Peter needed Him.
“But I need God now, and He’s not there. He was supposed to be there.” In the dark nights of my soul, I have had these exact words come from my mouth. And God met me in my questions and confusions, and I don’t know your situation or your deepest desires. God knows though, and you can tell Him the moment you walked on water and didn’t come back out. You can tell Jesus that you applied to a dozen interviews and no one has offered you a job. You flunked another test. You hurt another person you love.
I don’t know what God will tell you, but I know that He will reach you in the middle of your night. Ask Him to come. Actually don’t ask, tell Jesus to come. Jesus is yours. Jesus belongs to you forever and ever. No sin, no mistake, no regret, nothing will ever keep Jesus from being yours.
Romans 8: 35-39
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Jesus belongs to you.
Sometimes, when you walk on water and come back alive, only then can people see Jesus. Because no one else on the boat walked, but when Peter and Jesus came back all of them worshipped Him. In the storm, God will do what only He can do, and He will save you and have your testimony bring glory.
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