Let's Go for a Walk...

   One of my favorite stories in the Bible has Peter in a boat on a lake at night in the middle of a storm. He is staring out through the wind and waves at Jesus, who is standing there on top of the water. It's such an insane moment, so completely incredible. Hours ago Jesus sent the Disciples ahead. The last thing anyone would have imagined is that he would come along on foot, and here he is, look as if he's just going to walk on by and leave them there. The others think it's a ghost, but Peter imagines a new possibility.
   "Hey!" he yells. "If it's you, tell me to come out on the water and meet you!"
   "Okay," Jesus answers. "Come, then!"
   The rest of this story hasn't been written yet. It involves you and I. We're in the boat too and we all get a turn. It works like this...

   I had a dream that I was walking on a mountain road. As I walked the road began to go uphill. As it went up it grew steeper. Steeper and steeper this road grew until I was climbing a mountain. Steeper still. Now I was climbing from boulder to boulder. Still it grew steeper. Finally I was climbing a vertical rock face, stretching from toehold to fingerhold. Still it grew more steep and difficult. Finally, after going as far as I could, I was stuck, "spread-eagled" they call it, with no more holds, no where to go. Realizing my predicament, I grew afraid.
   There's probably no way to describe my fear of heights (or is it fear of falling?) except to say I was in a bad way. So I called out to God to save me. Jesus put his hand on my shoulder and said "Stand up!"
   I looked around. I was laying flat on the ground on a path in a garden. There was no mountain, no cliff, no danger. Only Jesus standing among the flowers and bushes, and me, feeling rather foolish. Grateful, though. I was grateful to be off that mountain.
   And this is what I'm getting today. Peter was able to comprehend the possibility that things were not all they seemed, that everything we've been told about walking... might not be the whole truth.

   JoAnne wanted a glass of water. I got up. The clock in the kitchen said "three a.m."
   "Oh, brother!" I said (or something like that...)
   Hours later JoAnne is up again. I roll over and turn on the light.
   "Turn the light off!" she says, "It's only three a.m.!"
   I don't believe her. I've been sleeping for hours and it was three in the morning hours ago so it must be time to get out of bed, right? I check the clock in the kitchen.
   "It's still three a.m." the clock says.
   "How can this be?" I wonder.

   When the clock says "ten-fifteen" and when it says "ten minutes to three" it looks the same. Especially when you don't have your eyes open. I don't like clocks with electric numbers, by the way, but that's another story.
   Now, this brings us back to the Word. There's a passage I just read yesterday, quoted in the book I'm reading. It's from Jeremiah, chapter 29.

   "Yes, I know what plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. When you call to me and come and pray to me, I shall listen to you. When you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me..."

   On a good day, we usually aren't seeing very clearly. Maybe with intense effort we get a glimpse of a possibility that things aren't what they seem. I know I've been fearful, and how much of the storms, the danger, the paralyzing anxiety is just illusion? In Christ, death has no power, no victory, it doesn't even sting. Yet we live our lives in bunkers, huddled behind heavy, locked doors, crying in the darkness without any hope of rescue. It's a terrible world we've made for ourselves... out of fear.
   The alternative is to stand up, get out of the boat, walk on the water and see what Christ sees. We are not alone. We are on this journey together and wherever we go, whatever seems to be true, Jesus sees it like it is, and we can see it too.

   We can spend our lives walking, arm-in-arm with Jesus, in the light, never alone, never afraid, moving like a crazy person from joy to joy as we walk out our lives in the light. It is right there for the asking. Call, pray, search for Jesus. Abandon your fears and stand up. We are saved...