Why Did You Doubt?

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When Jesus says, “Come,” you’d better come.
When he says, “Walk,” you’d better walk.

In Peter’s case, he was safer out on the water than in the boat. At that moment, the smartest thing Peter could do was to get out of the boat. Once Peter was fully on the water, he turns to walk toward Jesus. Everything goes fine until Peter notices the storm all around him. Remember, the storm has never stopped. During all this commotion, the rain has been coming down in sheets. Behind him the little fishing boat bobs on the roiling waves.

Matthew tells us that “when he saw the wind, he was afraid.” (v. 30). But the wind was there all along. The storm has been raging for hours. It’s not as if it let up when Jesus begins walking on the water. Jesus comes to them in the midst of the storm. According to verse 32, the wind doesn’t die down until Jesus and Peter get in the boat. It’s not easy to keep your eyes on Jesus in the middle of the night, when the raging storm of fear threatens to overwhelm you. This text reminds us that not only does Christ control the storm, and not only does he send the storm, he reveals himself in the midst of the storm. Very often our purest vision of Christ comes when the storms of life threaten to capsize the tiny boat of our faith. What do we do then?

Pray for “concentrating faith.”
Focus on Jesus.
Fix your eyes on the Son of God. 

What happened to Peter can happen to any of us. For a brief moment, he forgets about Jesus and remembers who he is and where he is. When he lost his concentration on Jesus, he began to sink.

As he goes down into the water, he prays one of the shortest prayers in the Bible: “Lord, save me!” (v. 30) When you are sinking you don’t have time to pray a long prayer. If you aren’t quick about it, you’ll drown before you get to the end of your prayer. The Bible says that immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. His words to Peter are very important. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). In our English version, “You of little faith” comes out to four words. But in the Greek Jesus only used one word: “Little-faith.” It’s a title or a nickname. Jesus called Peter “Little-Faith.” “Little-faith, why did you doubt?”  

When Jesus called Peter “Little-Faith,” he was not rebuking Peter for attempting too much, but for trusting too little. Do you see the difference?  Jesus is not saying, “Peter, you should have stayed in the boat.” To the contrary, Jesus is really saying, “Peter, if you had just kept your eyes on me, you could have walked across the Atlantic Ocean.”  

Keep your eyes on Jesus and not on the storm. That’s the lesson for today. 

Visitor Comments:

July 3, 2010, 12:56 PM Bungo says:
	Thank you for this wake-up call to keep concentrating on Christ in the midst of diculties. As I read, I have two remarks regarding the mental behavior of Peter. I believe we can learn greatly from him. Firstly, I think Peter’s problem is that he did not notice the storm right from the time he got o the boat. Had he been aware of the storm right at the beginning, this story would have changed completely, don’t you think? Suppose he told himself `I know the storm is there, but let’s walk as Jesus said’, He would have the courage to keep walking all the way until he reached Jesus. In short, Peter’s problem is that he lacked the sense of awareness of the present circumstance, which was the storm, at the time he was getting off the boat. As you mentioned, the storm was there all along. He just did not notice it. (In psychology this sense of awareness is called mindfulness.)
July 3, 2010, 12:58 PM Bungo says:
	Another problem of Peter is that he was too excited of the storm. As soon as he felt it, his immediate reaction was the `I’m going to sink’ mentality.If he thought `now I sense it, but let’s think of what I should do’, he might have been able to keep walking. Therefore, the problem was that he reacted to the storm too quickly. When we react to something too quickly, most of the time we follow our own human nature rather than Jesus. Indeed, some psychologists mention that human beings in the modern world are often too `reactive’.)
July 3, 2010, 12:59 PM Bungo says:
	With that said, let me give two applications to our life. First, we have to learn to let our consciousness be on the present situation. I think many of us don’t do so. While we are working, our mind thinks of what to eat in the evening. Or we even think about the movie we watched yesterday. If our attention is not on the now, how can we react to it according to our faith? Secondly, we have to learn to calm down. Due to internet, mobile phone and many other advanced communication technologies, we are influenced to be fast and efficient. Someway, somehow, I think we are influcencd to react quickly to whatever comes to our mind. No doubt, often we reacts so quickly that we forget Jesus. We even lose patience easily. But, remember, the scripture teaches us that the fruit of the spirit is self-control. When there is a problem, let us calm down, analyze the problem carefully, then choose the action that would best reflect our faithfulness to Christ. These are my remarks. I hope they are clear at expenses of their lengths.