Matthew Study 14:22

"... Come!..."

Here is the second time these fishermen were panicked in the midst of a stormy sea. The first time Jesus was there with them, asleep in the stern. Things got so bad they woke him up and accused him of not caring if they drowned (yet he was with them all along).

At first, Jesus is nowhere to be seen. But then, after hours of struggle, he finally appears in the nighttime of their fear. The rescue comes this time - not from within - but from without. At first, the deliverance was unrecognizable because it came in a new way, a different way, a way that actually bred more fear - and required more faith - in their troubled hearts.

Jesus likes to mix it up.

It is I. These words of the Word, speaking into the heart of the boat, assuring the fishermen they had not been abandoned, must have been so relieving! It is I.

Then Peter - either in his fervency to escape the sinking vessel or his impulsiveness to be be with the One he so dearly loved (perhaps an undefinable combination of both?) - beckons to come out "with You" into the frothing tempests. Sometimes God calls us deeper into the storm that we might meet him there; yet, I suppose, all storms are tolerable when we see Jesus in the midst of them.

Come! Peter bails out and makes a bee-line for the Lord, standing like a ghost in the wind and waves. The closer he gets to the miracle, the more he begins to rationalize the logistics of that same miracle. His mind "wavers" (literal Greek meaning) in the waves and he cries to be saved. Jesus lifts him from the depths and - I believe - speaks encouragingly to him, there on the sea.

You were awesome! You were doing do well. Dude, you were walking on the water! Why did you loose faith? And, lovingly taking him under his arm, walked Peter back - back through the doubting tempests of that same storm - where both stepped into the water-filled hull of the boat. Only then did the wind cease.

God is always testing, always stretching, always seeking to bring our faith into new realms where we are forced to cry out to him, the Author and Finisher of our in Faith. He knows that it is impossible to please God without faith and trains us accordingly. There is something in the cry that both breeds humility and dependancy - two things that Jesus is compelled to respond to.

Miracles are merely stepping stones to the One who waits in the midst of the storm.