My Peter Moments

My testimony is not very dramatic. God didn’t suddenly grab me and pull a 180 in my life. And I think I know why. When God first started working on me, I couldn’t have handled a 180. I probably would have had a heart-attack. I was quiet, shy, easily frightened, hated change, and “small” didn’t just describe my physical attributes.
In short, I wasn't an adventurer. I was a mouse. And God knew that the growth He had in mind for me needed to be taken slowly.
It kind of reminds me of a line in one of my all-time favorite movies, Amazing Grace.

John Newton: “God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms. Drip. Drip. Drip.”

That’s how He did it with me. He knew a bolt of lightning would probably put me into mental shock, so He did His work slowly. Piece by piece. Step by step. Drip, drip, drip. First it was homeschooling. Then it was a church change. Then another. (Switching staight from Milwaukie First Baptist to Milwaukie HOFCC would probably have put me over the top.) Then a new youth group. Then TeenPact. Through all those things, He led me gently along, step by step. Had I known where I was headed, I probably would have turned and run back. But I didn’t. I only saw the next step, and it usually didn’t look too scary. And when it did, those were usually the times that Mom and Dad made me do it. In fact, it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that I realized that all I wanted was what He wanted now. I wasn’t always scared anymore. I could take a crazy surprise every once in a while. I didn’t suddenly wake up and say, “Wow! My life stinks, I need to change!” Rather, one day I woke up and said, “Wait… I’m different. How did I get here?”

In the past year, God seems to have decided that I can handle a little more. Now I seem to be expected to willingly seek to draw nearer to Him, and actively follow His will. I’m cool with that. It excites me now. And since I’ve started being able to see more clearly what He’s doing, He’s taken me a lot of places I couldn’t go on my own.
Well, that’s where I am now. I’m places that I couldn’t have gotten to on my own. But surviving in that place of complete dependence on God is like walking a tight-rope. And when you “look down”, those are called “Peter Moments”.

Matthew 14:25-32
“Now in the fourth watch of the night 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?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.”

I have this image in my head of this passage. Peter is so focused on Christ he doesn’t see anything else. Then he “looks down”. Can you picture the look on his face in that moment? The moment when he looks away from Jesus, sees that he’s walking on choppy water and thinks, “Wait a second… I can’t do this!”
It’s kind of like that for me sometimes.

God has taken me so many places in the past year that I am not able to go. I can’t. If you don't believe me... believe me. Anyone who has known me for a few years can probably tell you that the person I was two or three years ago would never have staffed TeenPact, never done debate, would never have gone to nationals, would never have done any good in Mexico with all those kids, would most definitely NOT have become an intern at a newspaper. All those things are all God.
And they’re great things. When I’m just focused on following Christ, He takes me places I could never have reached on my own.
The problem comes when I get distracted. Sometimes, I look around at where I am and what I’m doing and realize… “Wait a second… I can’t do this! I can't do what I'm doing!”
Rather than focus on Christ, I get distracted by all the waves… all the things that could go wrong or I could mess up. I begin to sink into a wave of stress and fear as I wonder how I’ll get myself out of this without hurting myself.

Sometimes all I can do is cry, “Lord, save me!”

And the moment is so beautiful, and yet so painful when He with a word stills my fears, lifts me up again, and replies, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?”