Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.
But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary (against them).
Now in the fourth watch of the night (3am-6am), Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.
And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
So He said, “Come.”
And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Matthew 14:22-31
The changing picture at the top of this page always has some sort of path or road which represents the paths we take in the changing seasons of our spiritual lives.
In this scene in the book of Matthew, we see Jesus telling Peter to come to Him on some undefined, invisible path on the water while the winds raged against them.
And Peter, precious Peter, has enough faith to step out of the boat and to actually start walking toward Jesus on this invisible path.
But halfway through, his faith moves from Jesus to the wind and the waves, and he begins to sink.
I can’t blame Peter too much. Being willing to walk on water is amazing enough, but he got out of the boat when the wind and waves were so strong they were tossing them around. And this was no gentle rocking. The word “tossed” means pain, toil, torment.
Just as Jesus called Peter to walk a path of faith, He calls us to come to Him, to focus on Him and not the pain, not the toil, and not the torment.
When storms come and the winds of circumstance come against us, we might not see a clear path, and that is when, more than ever, we need to look to Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, walk toward Him a path of faith.