Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Come to me!

“Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, com­mand me to come to you on the water. So he said, ‘Come.’ Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus” (Matt 14:28–29). When Jesus assured the dis­ciples that he was the one walk­ing on water, Peter pleaded with him to let him come to him. Nat­ur­ally, Jesus invited him and behold, Peter went out to meet Jesus, walk­ing on water. I am sure Peter has nev­er had this exper­i­ence before. The power of believ­ing. He con­tin­ued walk­ing on water until he noticed the heavy wind blow­ing and, imme­di­ately, his fear returned and he star­ted sink­ing. At this point, he had no option than to implore Jesus to save him. Can you put your­self in Peter’s place? How often do you begin some­thing with so much enthu­si­asm and determ­in­a­tion only to be demor­al­ized due to one reas­on or the oth­er? Do you remem­ber the par­able of the sower? Just take your mind back to the seeds that fell on rocky ground. The explan­a­tion of these seeds are that they rep­res­ent those who hear the word of God and receive it with immense joy. But since they have no root, what they hear does not last. As soon as trouble or per­se­cu­tion comes their way, they imme­di­ately fall away, bear­ing no fruit. Peter was very enthu­si­ast­ic and determ­ined to go to Jesus when he heard it was he. But his own trouble came in the form of a heavy wind and he could not con­trol his fear. He for­got that the power of he who called him sur­passes the power of the wind. The moment he became only flesh, he star­ted sink­ing. What form do your own trouble take? What is it that causes you to sink des­pite your sol­id decision to move ahead and pro­duce good fruits? In Mat­thew 11:28, Jesus invited those who labour and are over-burdened to come to him and have rest. To answer cor­rectly the call of Jesus, every bur­den must be laid aside, else, the per­son risks sink­ing. But what was respons­ible for Peter’s sinking?

Conclusion

Jesus’ words to Peter, is also meant for every Chris­ti­an. Look­ing for God where God is not and can­not be found is a clear sign of oli­gop­is­tos. There are places, times and cir­cum­stances that we think sig­ni­fy the pres­ence of God, but they are not. Neither the dev­ast­at­ing wind, earth­quake, nor fire sig­ni­fied the pres­ence of God (cf. First Read­ing), and Eli­jah under­stood this. It was only at the appear­ance of the gentle breeze that God mani­fes­ted him­self. Does this mean any­thing to the con­tem­por­ary Chris­ti­ans who think shout­ing sig­ni­fies god­li­ness? Noise does not denote spir­itu­al­ity. Due to his little faith and doubt, Peter shouted.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for the 19^th Sunday is found on pages 401ff. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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