The sun beams a smile out of the clear blue sky yet again.
Could this be a real summer? Sitting in the cool of my living room (usually the
perishing cold...but today pleasantly cool!), I am thinking about the
aspirations of most people in the world – to live in the sort of comfort and
peace in which I live.
An earthly paradise.
The trouble with that sort of an aim is its short-termism.
Jesus calls us to live on the edge, to walk with the poor and marginalised, to
feed the hungry, to reach out to those in the gutters, to lobby for those
suffering injustice and persecution. He doesn’t call us to settle down into an
earthly paradise, nor even to aim to create one for ourselves.
Even in our churches, we can be more concerned with the
ambiance of the worship space than with the worship itself – which may in fact
be more genuine when we are away from the worship space and mingling with the
lost and hurting.
It’s tempting, and too easy, to settle. It seems to be our
default mode – to work out a routine and then settle into it, secure in the
boundaries we’ve drawn.
Peter, alarmed by the figure of Jesus walking on the water,
cried out – ‘If it’s you, Lord, tell me to come out of the boat!’ When Jesus
confirmed he was indeed Lord, Peter confidently climbed over the side and
walked on the water. As long as he kept his focus on Jesus, he continued to
walk on water, doing the miraculous not because he was holy or righteous but
because his eyes were on and his trust was in Jesus. When he allowed the noisy
wind to disturb his calm, he began to sink back into the ordinary, into the
natural. Fear overcame faith.
Do not be afraid, God repeats throughout the Bible.
Today, whatever lies before me, I pray that I might keep my
eyes on Jesus and step out of the boat. I don’t want to pursue comfort. I want
to pursue Jesus.
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