While ordinary days are mostly my experience, following Jesus Christ is still an adventure. This is because His commands require faith and often contradict what I can see as He asks me to go where I would never go on my own initiative. Walking by faith is illustrated by this incident . . .
(Jesus) said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” (Matthew 14:29–30)
In this situation, when they left shore, Jesus was not with them. A storm threatened their safety. Then they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them.
Before I get to the point of this event, I remember a scientist saying that there is absolutely no reason we should be able to sit on a chair. The space between the molecules in our bodies and the molecules in the chair are so far apart that they should easily be able to pass through and beyond each other. He was explaining how Jesus could walk through doors, but this also begs the question: if we can sit on a chair and not fall through it, why not walk on water and not fall through it? While I would not try it (unless Jesus Himself asked me) this is not an issue for the One who controls the elements of the universe.
In this event, the wind was actually blowing and the waves were actually enormous. The situation was truly dire, but Peter didn’t have his mind on that. He was focused on Jesus and stepped out of the boat as he recognized His call to come to Him. This is simple obedience, walking by faith, not sight.
Then Peter began to observe the actual situation he was in. He looked sideways instead of straight ahead and went down instantly. The Lord could have allowed him to walk on the water as he looked at reality, but this was not to be. Walking with Jesus is only possible by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus. This is what makes the Christian life a grand adventure.
Sometimes I step out trusting God and then, like Peter, I start worrying about myself or wondering if I can manage, or second-guessing that He even spoke and asked me to take that step. As soon as I do any of this, I tip over. Like Peter, I start to sink, and like Peter, cry out, “Lord, save me.”
Even then, the adventure has not ceased. While better to never look sideways, even when I start in total trust, falter, cry out and wind up being taken by the hand and rescued, these are extraordinary experiences. After a few of them, Jesus gets through to me that I do not need to look around. If I keep my eyes on Him, I do not need to falter or sink.
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Lord, walking with You is an amazing way to live. You have never asked me to walk on water, but sometimes on rocks, eggshells, slippery places, and even in total darkness. Each time, Your hand is outstretched. Because I know You will rescue me if I fall, I can take the next step without absolute terror. Help me totally overcome all fear. It is in this fearlessness that I learn to recognize that You are in control of all things.
For the most part, I am at home all day without the same contact with the world as someone who works outside the home. I’ve very little experience with the everyday world unless I choose to venture out in it. For the past little while, through various avenues, I’m finding out what it is like “out there” for the average Christian.
Last night, I told my husband that I felt like an alien. This world is not my home, literally and spiritually. Spurgeon expressed the same thoughts today as did David in this psalm:
Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers. (Psalm 39:12)
A sojourner is a temporary inhabitant, a stranger, an alien. I am a stranger with the Lord. (Thankfully, this is not a stranger to the Lord; for by grace I am in fellowship with Him.) I walk this earth and live in it with Jesus, as an alien in a foreign country. The New Testament even calls me, and all who believe, an ambassador for Christ. We represent Him here, but we do not call this place our country.
Jesus came to this world to His own people, the people God had selected to represent Him, but “His own received him not” (John 1:11). However, “to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (verses 12-13).
That describes my change in family and in citizenship. Even though I still have my old family, I am a member of the family of God and the body of Christ. Even though I live in this world, I am no longer part of it. My home is now a heavenly destination.
This new family and citizenship also include living a new life in Jesus Christ. That life makes me a foreigner; I am unknown and an alien in this world. Never have I understood that more as I investigate the reactions and responses of this world’s people to Christ’s ambassadors.
Those outside of God’s family do not understand our language and lifestyle. However, this isn’t a problem of ignorance. No amount of explaining can make it clear. Only spiritual people can understand spiritual things.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
For this, I find myself a stranger in the land, experiencing a similar sense of alienation as when we were in China. To those people, our speech was garbled nonsense and we struggled to be understood.
The similarity ends there, because as a Christian who came from a life of sin and selfishness, I am fully aware and do understand the ways of this world that I am in. I was once part of it. I know what it is like to look at Christians and think they are strange, even that they do not belong here.
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Lord, I agree with Spurgeon in that there is sweetness in this: I am a stranger with You. You are my fellow-sufferer, my fellow-pilgrim, my fellow-traveler. We wander this place together, You holding my hand, speaking comfort and encouragement, always giving direction to me. Because of Your presence, I can live in this foreign place and yet know deeper fellowship than afforded by all the contacts, workplaces, clubs, organizations and social networks of this world.
Add to that, I a part of a body, a large network of like-minded ambassadors who also walk this earth as strangers, because together we walk with You. Together we are blessed and can encourage one another in how to be in this world but not of this world.
May the sense of isolation that I feel not drive me into any folly or worldly behavior so as to have a false sense of communion. Instead, may this odd alienation always draw me closer to You as the One with whom I walk, and closer to other sojourners who also know this reality of being only visitors in this place.
