YOU OF LITTLE FAITH, WHY DID YOU DOUBT?

Christians are all too familiar with the famous passages describing Jesus’s disciple Peter walking on water. We are impressed with Peter’s bold statement to Jesus in Matthew 14:28, ‘‘Lord, if it’s You, tell me to come to You on the water.’’

Consider how this statement translates into clickbait titles today: ‘First Man To Walk On Water’, ‘Witnesses Reported Man Walking On Water’, ‘The Stunt That Made Peter Stand Out’, ‘Jesus’ Disciple Tanked After Few Steps On Water’, or  ‘Did Peter WoW (Walk On Water) For A Promotion?’.

Now compare them with these headlines that call for a deeper soul-searching: ‘You Of Little Faith, Why Did You Doubt?’, or ‘Is It Fickle Faith or Dizzying Doubt That Sinks You?’.

If you are honest, which titles would you readily click? In a world that glorifies sensational outcomes, people habitually avoid addressing conflicts, skirt around uncomfortable topics, cover up awkward moments, and generally skip over anything that could potentially help us develop relational depth and maturity.

If you asked Jesus for His take on the circumstances leading to Peter’s attention-grabbing stunt, you’d probably hear a very different story.

First and foremost, He had no intention of making Peter a gravity-defying disciple. Earlier on, Jesus had received the devasting news that the head of John the Baptist (His cousin), had literally been served on a platter in the most cold-blooded fashion by a ruler named Herod (Matthew 14:11). At this point, Jesus wanted nothing but to retreat in solitude to grieve. However, a massive crowd followed Him into the remote area where He was and grew so thick that He had no heart to send them off with empty hopes and empty stomachs. So, He healed the sick and fed the hungry.

Through it all, the disciples were so caught up with Jesus’ miracles and demonstrated a lack of spiritual sensitivity and discernment to catch the circumstantial and emotional cues of the Lord’s distress and why He needed to retreat by Himself because ‘their hearts were hardened’ (Mark 6:52).

Let’s not be guilty of the same mistake of glossing over important lessons from Jesus that can help us grow in spiritual sensitivity. We will look at three important questions embedded in Matthew 14:22-, as a spiritual health-check for our own relationship with Jesus.

The first question is this: Who is Jesus in your life? When you’re stuck in a stymie that doesn’t seem to change, it can feel as though Jesus has skipped town and left you all alone in your misery. The disciples felt the same way when they were offshore long enough to find themselves battling tidal waves. Yet, we see in verse 25 that ‘Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake’ in the time and hour of their distress. He didn’t approach because He saw from a distance distress signals from the boat. He went to them because He was always going to be with them – inside or outside the boat!

So here’s a fact: if Jesus is not in the boat with you, He is walking on water alongside you in the same storm you are facing.

The second question is this: Where is your focus? When Jesus’ disciples were busy battling their storm in the boat, they didn’t recognize the Lord’s appearance because they hadn’t even thought of Him in their solution.

This is often counter-intuitive but anchoring our faith in Jesus is more powerful than expending our effort and time agonizing over possible outcomes. If God had a faith mapping app, we will likely find ourselves off-course most of the time and needing to recenter our focus on the One who is our Lord and Saviour.

Don’t we need a real solution? Yes, but it is also counter-productive to obsess about our problems or to fixate on problem-solving because doing so will inevitably cloud our minds with anxieties, insecurities and confusion. We will also miss out on growth pathways that only surface in storms if we settle on premature and short-term solutions.

Note that Peter stepped into stormy waters and stayed afloat only as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. If Jesus wanted to give His disciples walk-on-water skills, He would have invited everyone to join the class. In truth, there was nothing impressive about Peter’s showmanship because he only wanted to test if it was really the Lord who was approaching. His faith in Jesus was fickle and as unstable as the currents. It wasn’t able to sustain him the minute his focus turned to the turbulence around him. (Matthew 14:30).

Finally, the third question is this: What is your level of faith?

What do you think Jesus was referring to when He rebuked Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). He was not critical of Peter’s level of faith but it was the lack of a growing faith despite having witnessed so many of His miracles and listened to so many of His teachings that He called Peter out on.

In the same way, it is naive to think that our faith grows on a constant diet of spiritual highs, divine interventions and miracles. Even consuming endless sermons and teachings does nothing to set us up to live a life of faith in Jesus. For that reason, we will occasionally find ourselves moved out of our comfort zones so that our faith muscles will be put to use. In the process, we will also learn to recognize Jesus in different scenarios.

Listen, God doesn’t expect us to live with mammoth faith all the time but it is important to keep our faith pulsating even under trying conditions when it is extremely hard to do so.

Take a few moments to reflect on the following and reinvigorate your faith today!

This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 28 May 2022.