Property Of God
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- Oct 13, 2007
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taken from: In a Pit with Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, pages 114-115
Sink or Sit
Peter gets a bum rap. Peter is the disciple who denied Christ three times, but he was the only one who got close enough to Jesus to get caught. Peter is the disciple who impulsively cut off Malchus' ear when the lynch mob came to arrest Jesus, but he was the only one who came to Jesus' defense. And he is the disciple who sinks in the Sea of Galilee , but he was also the only disciple who walked on water.
It's so easy to criticize Peter from the comfortable confines of the boat.
I think there are two kinds of people in the world: creators and criticizers. There are people who get out of the boat and walk on water. And there are people who sit in the boat and criticize water walkers.
Here is what I think: Sinking is better than sitting.
I'd rather get wet than have a numb gluteus maximus. When everything is said and done, I think our greatest regrets will be the God-ordained risks we didn't take. We won't regret sinking. We will regret sitting. In the words of German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Hell begins the day God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.”
Anything less than getting out of the boat is spiritual voyeurism.
It is so easy to criticize water walkers from the comfortable confines of the boat. But I think the other eleven disciples were haunted by this missed opportunity. Think about it. They could have walked on water. But they chose to stay in the boat. They missed a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity because they weren't willing to take a God -ordained risk.
Sink or Sit
Peter gets a bum rap. Peter is the disciple who denied Christ three times, but he was the only one who got close enough to Jesus to get caught. Peter is the disciple who impulsively cut off Malchus' ear when the lynch mob came to arrest Jesus, but he was the only one who came to Jesus' defense. And he is the disciple who sinks in the Sea of Galilee , but he was also the only disciple who walked on water.
It's so easy to criticize Peter from the comfortable confines of the boat.
I think there are two kinds of people in the world: creators and criticizers. There are people who get out of the boat and walk on water. And there are people who sit in the boat and criticize water walkers.
Here is what I think: Sinking is better than sitting.
I'd rather get wet than have a numb gluteus maximus. When everything is said and done, I think our greatest regrets will be the God-ordained risks we didn't take. We won't regret sinking. We will regret sitting. In the words of German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Hell begins the day God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.”
Anything less than getting out of the boat is spiritual voyeurism.
It is so easy to criticize water walkers from the comfortable confines of the boat. But I think the other eleven disciples were haunted by this missed opportunity. Think about it. They could have walked on water. But they chose to stay in the boat. They missed a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity because they weren't willing to take a God -ordained risk.
