Peter On The Water

You know the story when Peter sees Christ on the water and he wants to walk out and join Him, and Christ tells him to "Come." 

And Peter does.  

He walks on water.  

Can you imagine the thrill of that moment?  "I'm WALKING ON WATER!"  And your eyes are locked with Christ and you're doing it.  I try to imagine Peter's emotions in that moment.  We have those moments.  We just did something hard, or went through something hard and suddenly a blessing is totally obvious and the joy... we did it.  Our eyes are locked on Christ.

But Peter, for whatever reason, remembers the wind around him.  And wind always brings waves. I imagine the wind pulled at his hair and clothes and the spray of the water hit his face.  And Peter's eyes left Christ; his focus was on the waves. 

And in that moment he began to sink.  

We do that too.  We stop looking at Christ because life was going good and easy and we forget how much of that is His help.  So the wind picks up in our lives and the waves come at us and we begin to feel like we're sinking, even drowning in the proverbial sense as I imagine Elder Jeffrey R. Holland would say it.   And we call out, like Peter, "Lord, save me!"

How often I've poured my heart out in prayer in that way.

I love this next part.  IMMEDIATELY Jesus stretches out his hand to save Peter.  

To save us. 

Even while He's shaking His head and saying something to the effect of, "You were right there, you had it.  What happened?  Why did you look away?  Why did you doubt me?"

Because hadn't the wind and waves been there all along?  Even when Peter first set foot on the water?

I think I can relate to Peter, out there on the water.

Maybe you can too.

(Matthew chapter 14)