walking on water

Summer often seems to fly by - gone quicker than the flicker of a firefly. So I'm trying to sip it in. Enjoy the moments as they happen. And here in this space, I want to wander back in time and savor the essence of summer's past. Perhaps it will help summer present taste all the sweeter. So pull up a glass of chilled beverage and sip along with me...

There was a time when I didn't like to swim. At least in the front crawl-backstroke sense. It just seemed, well...boring.

So that left me, my sister Hilary and our friend Amanda (we three who most frequently shared pool-side time) to invent new ways to enjoy the water apart from lying by or floating on it.

One day we decided to try to walk on it. I think it was my idea strangely enough given my agnostic/atheist bent at the time.

I wonder if God wasn't in stitches watching us.


We decided a slow approach and stepping out on faith would result in a quick sinking to the bottom. After carefully considering the situation, we figured running at it would give us the greatest chance for success.

We knew the odds were against us. Yet, I think all of us held some kernel of faith, even little ol' God-doesn't-exist-and-Jesus-was-just-some-guy me, that one of those times we actually would defy gravity and feel a watery carpet beneath our feet as we journeyed to the other side.

Obviously, we didn't even make it close to reaching the other side or we would have made it into the history books.So it became a game to see who could take the most steps before the inevitable plunge. I think our record was four.


And now, two decades (!) and a whole lot more faith later, does the same thing still not happen? And I wonder if this is how many of us Christ-followers live...

Letting our logic and knowledge of the natural world battle and triumph over our faith in what God can do. Taking a running leap at a situation instead of stopping to pray and asking God for the faith and direction to guide our approach. And when we don't get as far as we had hoped, looking around and comparing how far we got against the success of others.

As I write this, I wonder if more us might walk on water as Peter did with Jesus if we stopped and prayed and waited for the buoyancy of faith to bear us across the ripples. Perhaps I'll try it again this summer. God still may say no and I may still sink to the bottom, but perhaps He and I could have a good chuckle over the audacity to believe a 2000-year-old miracle could happen again.

Do you think you might try it to? Let me know if you do that we might share the joy of our faith together.

Sharing with: thought-provoking thursday @ intentional.me