Sometimes I feel like Peter. Impulsive, emotional, and ready to jump out upon the waves to come to Jesus. But then I begin to look around at the waves; I begin to doubt and I sink. How is it possible that one moment you can be so confident in a person, or a situation, or a feeling and then the next it is gone? And when you look at it realistically, you realize you are looking at it through your own view. Perhaps it isn’t as awful as you think it is. Perhaps it is really good. Perhaps the object of all your doubt in reality isn’t something you should worry about…because in the end it will all turn out. If it turns out bad, you will be strong and you will get over it. If it turns out good then none of the doubt will mean anything thing. And you have wasted all this time!
I lost the battle today. I was so positive and faithful in my beliefs that everything in my life was set on the right path, that I had the good thoughts of a friend, and that everything was so much more beautiful than I could have imagined. But then, somewhere around night time church I lost everything. I fell off my high and now am totally broken in the ditch of hopelessness. I’ve lost all my power to believe and have faith and to trust and to wait. Maybe it is the end of weekend blues. Maybe it is just my inability to have faith in something more than 24 hours without constant reassurance. Sigh.
And there is the crux of the matter. It’s almost like an addiction, my worrying. And when I am forced to pull away from excessive reasoning and perfectionism and rely on trusting the impossible it feels like a drug addict going through withdrawal. You can’t focus, you feel sick, you feel panicked, you feel overwhelmed with emotion, then you feel no emotion, you feel hopeless and broken and unable to imagine that you’ll ever pull through.
But you do...eventually. And I will too.
Something odd I have noticed is that when I finally release all the control and the worrying that I indulge in, then and only then does everything magically fall into place…like God was just waiting for me to get my act together before he blessed me. Why do we forget what we’ve just learned? Why do we do the things that we hate to do? What would I do if I was asked to go through months and months more of this test of faith and patience? I feel nearly ready to sink at such a thought...What a silly, hopeless creature I am… always looking at those waves...
6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:6-9
