This week has truly been a struggle for me. The emotional stress from my job and the underlying pressure of culture stress just really erupted this week. Culture stress comes after one goes through culture shock. Sometimes I think its worse than culture shock because its stress that lies below the surface and you don't even know its there until one day it just blows up in your face. I know for a fact that I could not make it through this without my wonderful husband. As I am going through a lot of changes, a lot of growing in just a short period of time, its so encouraging to have someone by my side who loves me unconditionally and has just incredible patience with me. Someone waiting with me as I'm working everything out and its truly a picture of God's great love and patience.
Hebert always encourages me during those difficult moments using a passage from Matthew 14: 22-34. In this passage Jesus walks out on the water to his disciples who are sailing during a storm. They see a man walking on the water and are scared at first because they think its a ghost. Jesus replies,
"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." Matthew 14: 27-33
When I was younger and much more naive I used to read the gospels and think to myself "Can you believe this Peter guy he has Jesus right there in front of him doing all of these miracles and yet he still has all these doubts." The hard truth is that I and I'm sure many of us identify more with Peter than we like to admit. For me this passage talks to me a lot about faith and trust in God. Peter is commanded to walk out on the water to Jesus, but as soon as he saw the wind, he is filled with fear and doubt and begins to sink. In a sense, Peter loses confidence in himself, but even more than that Peter loses confidence in his new identity as Christ's disciple. He forgets the great and miraculous power that Jesus has. Jesus feeds the 5,000 right before this story. Even after witnessing that incredible, inexplicable event Peter's faith falters due to a trying situation.
I see so much of my life right now in this story. God has done some ridiculous things in my life over the past 5 years. He has always been faithful and constant through every storm and every trial. I'm now a new creation in Christ and I can do anything through him. However, when times get rough and hope is something you have to fight for its so easy to be overwhelmed by human limitations. Faith dwindles. To me, faith is belief beyond human limitations. Hebrews 11 is filled with heroes of faith who believed not in their humanity, but in the power of God working through them. Lately I've been so focused on my limitations such as differences in culture and language. I become so obssessed with it, that I begin to feel like such a complete fool and it affects everything around me. Too much attention is paid on the negative on the humane, instead of having faith and believing that God is so much larger than anything, including different cultures and different languages. There is so much that I want to do here. So much that I want to share with the people of Venezuela. My human limitation of fear, more specifically, my fear of failure is keeping me from moving forward. I have to let it go and have faith that trusts no matter what. The road before me is not going to be easy, and without constant faith its going to be impossible.
Kendall Payne is one of my new favorite artists. I highly recommend checking out the song "I will show you love." The song is written as if God were singing to us. There is a line that says, "Walk out on the water where you have no control. So scared to death of failure you sacrifice your soul please let that go." I think its finally time for me to walk out on that water and stop sacrificing my soul.
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