“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

“The nature of God is playful, that is why He hides. God is not only present when we can see Him, He is present when we can’t, and joy comes from recognizing God in places we never thought He would be. God hides in difficulty, He hides in suffering, He hides in poverty, He hides in failure, and He hides in the stories of our lives. Whatever our circumstance, whatever the status of our lives, God is present—invisible, hiding, waiting for us to discover Him, waiting for us to learn from Him in the shadows as well as the light.” (MichaelYaconelli, “Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith” (p. 82).

“That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” (Genesis 32:22-28)

Have you heard of the experience called the “Dark Night of the Soul”? This phenomenon describes a malady some of the greatest of all Christians have suffered from time to time. It was the same experience Martin Luther suffered that his melancholy threatened to destroy him. This is no ordinary fit of depression – instead it is a depression that is linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of G-d or is wrestling with the fear that G-d has abandoned them.

Jacob wrestled with G-d without knowing it was G-d – or one of G-d’s angels. Either way Jacob had a “Dark Night of the Soul” when he was at Peniel. Though G-d was hidden from him through this experience, in his suffering, he earned a new name, and a new status with a blessing from G-d.

Yaconelli writes: “Whatever our circumstance, whatever the status of our lives, God is present—invisible, hiding, waiting for us to discover Him…”

For Jacob, it was in his willingness to wrestle, to lean into his difficulties, to struggle with his sinful past that he discovered that G-d was waiting for him. Just because we might be struggling, this does not mean G-d has left us. Most likely G-d is hiding in the places we least expect to see G-d, only to let us know we too are blessed in our trust and faith, trusting that G-d does not abandon us.

Pastor Dave