1 am

Well, after starting out strong with posting on this blog, I've really slacked off. That seems to be a consistent problem for me - I have this great idea or step out on something I hear from God, but I'm rather lacking when it comes to follow through. Like Peter. When Jesus walked on water toward the disciples, Peter was the only one to jump out of the boat and walk toward Jesus. It was a natural response for a disciple - disciples were supposed to do everything their masters were doing and they had often participated with Jesus in the supernatural before, but Peter was the only one to actually do it. This story is interesting to me because it challenges some key things I think about God.



The big challenge - that God's will is certain, planned, and it will be done regardless of us: I find it fascinating that Jesus didn't initiate this one - it was Peter that asked if he could come out on the water. Would this story have happened if Peter didn't ask? Would Jesus ask the disciples if one of them wanted to walk on water? I seriously doubt it. Even though Jesus probably didn't plan on Peter walking on the water towards him, it became His will when he heard Peter. Now I don't know whether God actually changes his mind or just appears to, but I'll let the theologians debate that...

This is a hard pill for me to swallow - that the God of the universe would 'change His mind' based on our desires (see John 2 and the turning water into wine or Abraham and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or the story of Jonah for other instances), but it makes much more sense when you consider God as father. In my own experience as a dad, I've seen this many times - I don't have any plans on reading a book, taking a walk etc, but when my son wants to do those things, then I jump on the opportunity to spend time with him. Because it's his will, it becomes mine.

Now, obviously that doesn't happen in every situation. If he wants to cross the road alone or touch a stove, I don't let him. Or he burns himself and I have a talk with him about it. Just like God does with us. I find this fascinating - the Bible truly transcends culture this way. We get frustrated because some things in it aren't really logical from our western perpective, but there are almost as many types of logic as there are cultures... God chose to demonstrate Himself chiefly through relationships and I think it's for exactly this reason - relationships exist in every culture and everyone can understand them.