Peter

Last night I posted that I felt like Peter, and was waiting for Jesus to reach out his hand and catch me.

I feel so stressed right now. Overwhelmed. There is so much work to be done and it feels absolutely impossible to do it all at all, nevermind to try to do it with excellence. It's simply too much. And as I burn myself out spinning my wheels and trying to stay on top of it all, I feel like I'm drowning.

Which made me think of Peter walking on the water. When he saw the wind, he became afraid and began to sink. But unlike Peter, I don't just feel like my ankles are dipping in...I'm straining to stick my mouth out and gasp in some fresh air. I'm well past "starting to sink." Regardless...the fear is there. What if the wind never dies down? What if things stay this crazy?

Ultimately for Peter, the problem wasn't the wind or the scary things around him. They couldn't have touched him if he'd believed. The problem was that he didn't trust Jesus to empower him in the midst of all that. But even when he didn't trust Jesus to empower him, he trusted him to help him. I'm struggling with the faith even for the second one. And I really, really want to believe that Jesus can not only pull me up above the water, but that he can empower me to stay on the surface. But that's easier said than done. It's so much easier to look at the wind and the storm howling around me and wonder if it will ever clear up.