Keep your eyes on Jesus

Then Peter spoke up. ‘Lord, if it is really you, order me to come out on the water to you.’
‘Come!’answered Jesus. So Peter got out of the boat and started walking on the water to Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he was afraid and started to sink down in the water. ‘Save me, Lord!’ he cried.   (verses 28-30)

Read Matthew 14: 22-33

In the middle of the night, wet, tired and thrown about by the md, the disciples learnt the fundamental lesson of the spiritual life: keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. While Peter’s eyes were on Jesus, he walked on water. He walked with Jesus, safe above the deep, dark depths of death. They could not swallow him. But the moment his eyes drifted away from Jesus to the frightening conditions around him, he began to sink. What he feared most began to swallow and consume him.

The lesson for us is clear: keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. When we become fixated on our failures, we no longer see the one who forgives our failures. When we become obsessed with our fears we forget that Jesus walks amid our fears. And the moment Jesus disappears from view, we begin to sink. The deep, dark depths start to consume us. But Jesus is still there, and his hand reaches out to us and pulls us out-again and again and   again.

LORD, save me from sinking! Don’t let the flood come over me; don’t let me drown in the depths or sink into the grave. Answer me, LORD, in the goodness of your constant love· in your great compassion turn to me!  (Psalm 69: 15,16)

by Linards Jansons, in ‘Living Water for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2001)

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