ME-ssentials – Afraid – Day Seventeen
ESSENTIALS for Me NOT to Be: Afraid
September 17th, 2021
What’s your ESSENTIAL?
Essential: absolutely necessary; indispensable; the essence of a thing; inherent and intrinsic, vital
Just as there are so many ESSENTIALS for me to be, there are just as many ESSENTIALS for me NOT to be. Let’s explore those the other half of this month!
John 14:22-32, ‘As soon as the people were fed, Jesus told His disciples to get into their boat and to go to the other side of the lake while He stayed behind to dismiss the people. After the crowds dispersed, Jesus went up into the hills to pray. And as night fell, He was there praying alone. But the disciples, who were now in the middle of the lake, ran into trouble, for their boat was tossed about by the high winds and heavy seas. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came to them, walking on the waves! When the disciples saw Him walking on top of the water, they were terrified and screamed, “A ghost!” Then Jesus said, “Be brave and be not afraid. I am here!” Peter shouted out, “Lord, if it’s really You, then have me come to You on the water!” “Come to Me,” Jesus replied. So Peter stepped out onto the water and began to walk toward Jesus. But When He realized how high the waves were, he became afraid and started to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he cried out. Jesus immediately stretched out His hand and lifted him up and said, “What little faith you have! Why would you let doubt win?” And the very moment they both stepped into the boat, the raging winds ceased.’ (TPT)
Peter and the other disciples didn’t have the benefit of the Scriptures, God’s spoken Word. They hadn’t been able to read ahead to the end of the chapter, to the end of the Big Book to see how it all worked out. Peter didn’t visit a psychic; he didn’t get to know ahead of time by a prophetic word being spoken over him. No one had given Peter a glimpse that this wasn’t how their story was going to end, at the fourth watch on a tempestuous and tumultuous sea, as they felt the boat heave and the waves rock and the wind wail, while they peered through the depth at an apparition floating toward them, above it all. He didn’t receive a newsflash that several chapters later He would almost wish he had died in that fierce storm instead of facing a Savior he had denied and let down. He hadn’t a clue, a couple books later in the Bible he would flounder again on a restless sea with empty nets and a useless night of work nor that he would swim ashore to find a homecooked breakfast and campfire coffee and his life companion waiting patiently to sup with him.
How afraid might we find ourselves more often if we never had been given the inerrant Word of God. I can’t imagine. I have all the proper speech inflections and aha moments and appropriate gasps, and I’ve shaken my head more often than not about choices our boys made while wandering with Jesus. But we also know how the story goes. I consider what it must have been like to be rocking and rolling on a troubled water, tired and wore through from emotion of a previous day, still pondering how an entire township basically was fed a gourmet Fish-n-Chips meal from a few crumbs, and suddenly, a ghost has appeared out of mist and is undulating in my direction. For that spirit to chastise me for being afraid is enough to bite my tongue but would I have the guts to say, ‘If it’s you truly, tell me to come’?! I might have pulled out my harpoon or gotten my empty nets ready to catch a ghost.
I have given this considerable thought today. Peter and the boys didn’t have the Book to read ahead in, to see how things might turn out for them. How wonderful the Word is because we can see what they were up against and how God came through for mankind time after time. He always comes through, right? First of all, Jesus didn’t send them on the boat into a storm so He could go rest and pray, only for them to be overcome by a storm that would take them out. No! God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t send you someplace He doesn’t intend you to get to, and furthermore, He gives us all the tools to make it to the other side unscathed. He won’t send you to something where He doesn’t give you the means to make it through.
I also noticed how very close Jesus must have been because Peter cried out to be saved, and all Jesus had to do was stretch out His hand and lift him up to be rescued. Do you know that your Savior is just that close, that near to you; He is just as in love with you as He was with one of His very best friends…do you know that? Peter didn’t know it either because He was found afraid and uncertain, He was drowning and flailing; he begged to be saved and he was rescued by Jesus.
