DISTRACTIONS

Jesus immediately reached out His hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” – Matthew 14:31
From childhood each one of us carries a word in our heart, and that is “no” or a “yes.” But as Christians God gives us this “For in Him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” – 2 Corinthians 1:20. Just remember one thing: Don’t be distracted and don’t look down. In my Christian walk one thing I have learned from this passage is Don’t look down and it has became the number one rule in my life. As Peter was walking on the water, the Bible does not tell us if Jesus was saying anything to him or not. But if He did say anything to him I can imagine He probably said, Peter, just look at me, trust me, don’t look down. Keep going, that’s it one foot in front of the other. Keep looking at me come towards me and whatever you do – don’t look down. I can also imagine that Peter’s eyes were locked on Jesus. Well we don’t know exactly how far he walked and kept his eyes on Jesus, but the important point is that he walked on water. As we read this text we see that three things happened. That for some reason peters eyes shifted from Jesus to the storm – he felt the wind on his face and body. As he shifted his eyes from Jesus to the storm This simple shift of attention gave way to a new focus and his feelings began to creep up and this was panic and in his inadequacy: and without doubt “He became frightened.” By doing this it disrupted his focus on what mattered, and that is Jesus and his ability to continue walking in Jesus’ power – he began to sink and cried out, “Lord, save me!” As a child I remember The looney tunes cartoons with Wile E coyote, who very often ran off a cliff without realising it and For a while he continues running on thin air as if he had the ground to run on. Then all of a sudden he sees that he has run off the cliff. He panics, holds up a little sign saying Save me, and falls thousands of feet and splat, and then he continues trying to catch the road runner. You see that it is not running off the cliff that did him in – the fall only started when he realised that there was no ground. He forgot the number one rule: Don’t look down. When Jesus extends His hand to Peter, He asked Peter why did you doubt. I do not think this was simply an exercise in blaming him for his lack of faith. I think that, like any good teacher, Jesus really did want Peter to learn from this experience so he could grow. Now we can learn from this “don’t look down” and around, no matter what keep your eyes on Jesus. Simple teaching hey, but what is taking your focus of Jesus, what is worrying you right now. This is just to remind you that He is saying to you just keep your eyes on me.
May God bless you Amen Amen y Amen.