“The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving.” (Pema Chodron, “When Things Fall Apart)

“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. “But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:25-31)

I believe that many of us, when we feel as if we have reached our limit at work, at home, even in our faith, our first instinct is to freeze – to stop. This was the situation with Peter when he stepped out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus. Once he realized he was in over his head, so to speak, he froze – because he was afraid.

It is the instinct of the human to stop when we are frightened by a noise, by a sight, even by a thought. When something scares us or distracts us, we tend to stop what we are doing to scan the environment – because our self-preservation instincts kick in. This is why Peter stopped walking – his fear got the better of him, and he stopped walking. If he had kept moving, he would have reached Jesus rather than Jesus needing to reach out to him.

Pema Chodron suggests a different tactic when we have reached our limit on the spiritual path: she suggests that we keep moving.

It is hard to keep moving when our faith-ears and our faith-eyes sense danger. We each have had the experience of being confronted by something so shocking or surprising we simply freeze – not sure what our next step should be. This is what stopped Peter in his tracks – and why he began to sink. Training ourselves to continue to look toward Jesus rather than being frozen by fear takes practice – but that is what the journey of faith is all about. The more our lives become cruciform, or shaped by the love of G-d and the Grace of Jesus, the more we can learn to trust our faith instincts rather than our fear instincts.

Pastor Dave