{"id":2898,"date":"2012-12-13T00:05:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T08:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=2898"},"modified":"2012-12-15T11:20:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T19:20:18","slug":"think-you-can-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2012\/12\/13\/think-you-can-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Think You Can Do It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t convinced and told Jesus, \u201cIf it\u2019s you, tell me to come to you on the water.\u201d <\/p>\n

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, \u201cYou of little faith. Why did you doubt?\u201d That story comes from Matthew 14:25-33.<\/p>\n

\tSome are quick to criticize Peter\u2019s lack of faith. They apparently fail to notice something significant: the fact that, for a little while, Peter actually walked on water<\/em>. So far as we know, no other ordinary human being has ever managed to do that. <\/p>\n

Notice something else: the shortness of Peter’s jaunt upon the lake is described by Jesus as indicating \u201clittle faith\u201d not<\/em> \u201cno faith.\u201d <\/p>\n

When combined with Jesus\u2019 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\u2019ve never walked on water. Of course, I\u2019ve never had Jesus standing there telling me, \u201ccome on in, the water\u2019s fine\u201d either. Faith isn\u2019t a warm feeling, or hoping it will somehow be okay. It\u2019s hearing God tell you to do something\u2013and then doing it\u2014even as you still harbor some doubt that it is possible. The doing<\/em> is an important part of faith, because faith isn\u2019t just a feeling, it is action.<\/em><\/p>\n

\tThere’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. <\/p>\n

Then he asked for a volunteer.<\/p>\n

\tNo one stepped forward. <\/p>\n

\tAs James so eloquently put it, \u201cfaith without works, is dead.\u201d <\/p>\n

If you really have faith, you can act on it. That no one was willing to get in the wheelbarrow demonstrated that they didn\u2019t have even a little faith. In fact, all they had were doubts. <\/p>\n

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<\/em> faith. Tiny. Like a mustard seed.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2928,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions\/2928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}