When God Calls You Into the Deep
In three of the gospels (Matthew 14:25, Mark 6:48, John 6:19) there is a story of Jesus walking up to the disciples, on the water, as they struggle against rough seas in a little fishing boat. Although the Bible doesn’t mention if Jesus was leaping with the finesse of a swan lake dancer, or trudging through the waves like a Marine on a mission, it’s no shocker why the disciples were terrified. Men just don’t walk on water…or do they? Of course Jesus is the incarnate son of God, so it’s not necessarily surprising to see him traipsing over the waves, when God has displayed his power over water numerous times prior to this event. However, there is a priceless detail in this story, only recorded by Matthew. It’s the captivating point when Jesus invites Peter to walk out and meet him on the water. Peter, a full-blooded human, born of a union between a man and his wife, steps out of the boat and walks to Jesus over the tumultuous waves.
We read this story and are so quickly impressed by the magnitude of the miracle, we struggle to relate it to our own very ordinary, natural lives, yet we must ask, why is Peter included in this story by Matthew? What is God trying to tell us here with feisty, impulsive and enthusiastic Peter?
Let’s consider the scene for a moment. As the rest of the disciples are still screaming like little girls over what they believe is a ghost, Peter immediately says, “Ok you’re Jesus, show me!” It’s part of our human struggle to look around this crazy world and only see with our natural eyes, but as we become more familiar with the presence of God in our lives and the evidence of his mighty hand at work, our eyes are opened and it becomes easier to see by our spirit or more precisely the spirit of God alive within us.
When God calls us into the deep, it’s not a call into more intense study, it’s a call into action…something that pushes us beyond our own strength and natural abilities. It’s a call to step out of the boat and into the waves. “Come,” Jesus said to Peter and he came. It wasn’t until Peter noticed the wind, the evidence of adversity in the natural world, that he became afraid. Did he sink because he was afraid or was he already sinking with the wind and the waves and became afraid? What if Jesus called him out to demonstrate the need for Peter to remain reliant upon him…to trust and believe in the impossible, even though he was already sinking? If Jesus had let Peter plunge to the depths of the lake, could God still have preserved his life? Yes, of course!
It is within God’s very nature to call us into the deep, to take us to a place where we are so under water we have no choice but to depend on him. It doesn’t matter what the call is, the uncertainty is the same. God will push us beyond ourselves…what we know…what we believe…who we think we are…to open our spiritual eyes, and we will be afraid just like Peter, yet God will be there nudging us along and building our reliance upon him. There will even be those around us, other Christians perhaps, who may say, That’s crazy! Get back in the boat! It is much easier to trust in our natural sight, than the guidance of the unfamiliar spirit of God, therefore just like in this story, most won’t even get out of the boat, yet God’s goal for us will always be to move us further and further from reliance upon ourselves and our own natural sight.
