After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus sent his disciples ahead of him in a boat, telling them to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The wind and waves were against them and they made slow progress. Not long before dawn, the disciples looked up and saw Jesus walking along on the water of the lake. He was coming toward them. Terrified, they imagined they were seeing a ghost. After Jesus identified himself to them, Peter wasn’t convinced and told Jesus, “If it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

So, Jesus told him to come on out. Remarkably, Peter climbed out of the boat and began walking across the water toward Jesus. Part of the way there, Peter noticed where he was and what he was doing and panicked–sort of like the coyote in the cartoon who runs off the cliff but doesn’t start falling until he notices he’s standing on nothing. So Peter began sinking. He yelled for Jesus to save him, and Jesus promptly did–and hauled him back into the boat. Jesus climbed aboard too, and asked Peter, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” That story comes from Matthew 14:25-33.

Some are quick to criticize Peter’s lack of faith. They apparently fail to notice something significant: the fact that, for a little while, Peter actually walked on water. So far as we know, no other ordinary human being has ever managed to do that.

Notice something else: the shortness of Peter’s jaunt upon the lake is described by Jesus as indicating “little faith” not “no faith.”

When combined with Jesus’ words elsewhere about faith the size of a mustard seed being able to move mountains, a clear lesson becomes obvious: the smallest bit of this faith stuff is pretty darn strong. I’ve never walked on water. Of course, I’ve never had Jesus standing there telling me, “come on in, the water’s fine” either. Faith isn’t a warm feeling, or hoping it will somehow be okay. It’s hearing God tell you to do something–and then doing it—even as you still harbor some doubt that it is possible. The doing is an important part of faith, because faith isn’t just a feeling, it is action.

There’s an old story about a tightrope walker who set a line across Niagra Falls and then proceeded to walk back and forth across it, to the applause of hundreds of onlookers. Then he took a wheelbarrow and pushed it back and forth, to even more applause. Finally he addressed the crowd and asked them if they believed that if someone climbed in the wheelbarrow, would he be able to push that person safely back and forth across the expanse? The crowd shouted its affirmation.

Then he asked for a volunteer.

No one stepped forward.

As James so eloquently put it, “faith without works, is dead.”

If you really have faith, you can act on it. That no one was willing to get in the wheelbarrow demonstrated that they didn’t have even a little faith. In fact, all they had were doubts.

God doesn’t ask us to have no doubts. He doesn’t ask us to have a mountain’s worth of faith. He just asks us for a little faith. Tiny. Like a mustard seed.

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