Every New Thing

What do you do when everything changes?

If you're like me, and I think like most of us, wholesale change is overwhelming. I'm talking about those rare moments when even your inner dialogue changes and you feel like a stranger in your own mind because everything is that new and that exciting and that...intimidating. (Which I only say because I already said overwhelming.) It's like for one reason or another, life snaps. And I guess today when I say that, I'm thinking of the times when life snaps into place.

It's the kind of thing we dream about, at least I do. It's the kind of moment I've had only in my head for far too long, and I have to admit that I always envision myself handling it better than I do when the actual time comes. I imagine diving in, swimming in the deep, giving myself wholly over to a new creation, relieved of the burden of the old one. But then that moment hits, and I hardly recognize myself, let alone know what to do, let alone know how to live.

So here's what we do - we find the one thing. We find the one thing we can hold onto and drag with us into the newness, one thing we can have that reminds us who we are. We do this even when we've dreamt of not being that any more, even when it is contrary to the very answered prayer that's open before us. Then we're torn between all we've ever wanted and all we've ever been because we can't seem to just let go.

I could not articulate for you the things I hold onto. I'm not sure I quite know myself. I could not articulate why they seem so important. I'm not sure I know. I can't even really describe the tension, but if you've been in this kind of a moment, you understand exactly what I'm talking about.

But what I want to tell you is: I think I've got it. Maybe.

We dream wrong.

When I dream about the life God is calling me to, I am filled with the Spirit. But I am most aware of what it might feel like to be me when that day comes. I feel what it might be like to be running toward that dream, to be swimming in that deep, to be smothered in that love, to be powered by that purpose. My entire reflection of the experience is what that must be like. Then when I get there, I'm disappointed.

Because by the time I ever get there, I'm not who I was. By definition, I can't be. And if I don't know me, I can't recognize the dream, which leaves me feeling lost and overwhelmed and desperate for something familiar to cling to. Which I inevitably find in who I once was and therein lies the tension between where I was and where I'm called to be. It throws everything out of whack because suddenly, my life spins on the one thing I've found to hold onto.

What if that one thing was Jesus?

What if when we dream, we dream about what God is going to be like on that day? What if we dream about what it must be like to be in His will, to be all of the things we already think we feel - swimming in the deep, smothered in love, powered by purpose - but we drew those feelings from what He was doing instead of what we were doing? And what if we could make Him so central to our being that He becomes the thing we cling to from who we were to who we are called to be? What if we made our lives spin on Jesus?

What if I made my life spin on Jesus?

Decisions

I've been talking for two days about the story of Peter and his attempt at water-walking. Today, I want to take you deeper into Peter's head - and yours - to dig out one more detail that I believe is critical to this story.

Intent. Or put another way, Decision.

Let me ask you something. Why have you ever wanted to walk on water? If you're like me, the answer is something akin to "Because it would be cool" or "To prove that I can." After all, this is the measure of faith. (If you still believe that, go back to Wednesday and start over. Please.) But isn't that the truth? We want to walk on water to show our God - and our world - and maybe even our reflection in the water - that we can. As if that matters.

I want to say that Peter was a man, that he had the same thoughts we have looking back on this story. I want to say that he saw Jesus walking to him on the water and thought, "That would be cool. I bet I could do that." And then he asked for the opportunity to prove himself. If that's the case, I go back to the point I made yesterday, which was: even if you've asked for the proving ground, you have to wait for God to call you to it before you go. (I probably didn't make that point this clearly yesterday, so here it is again: You have to wait for God to call you before you try walking on water.)

But suppose Peter really is this noble guy with better intentions and stronger God-confidence than most of us have. Suppose he wasn't thinking how cool it would be or about his ability to do it. Suppose instead, he was thinking what I would hope to think - that's my Lord out there, calling me to Him, and I've got to go. Maybe he's thinking one step deeper - there's a raging storm, and I hear my Friend's voice. He's calling me to Him, and I'm going.

Isn't that a beautiful - and pure - thought? I aspire to such pure thoughts.

So let's say that's what Peter was thinking - that there stood His Lord, and if it took crossing the water to get to Him, then for Christ's sake, he'd be a fool not to go. The question then is this: what did Peter have to decide?

Did he have to decide he was going to walk on the water? Was that really the choice? He's standing in the boat with eleven other guys. The waves are crashing. The Lord is calling. Am I supposed to believe that Peter was standing there, contemplating the water walk, letting this moment hang in the air while he debated how exactly he was supposed to set his foot on the sea?

Been there. Just writing that, I'm thinking of all the holy moments I've left hanging. ...and then missed.

Peter didn't miss his because he didn't stand there trying to figure out the impossible. He didn't waste time in the details. He didn't get caught up trying to decide whether or not he was going to, or could, or should walk on water.

He just had to decide he was going to Jesus, to the place where he was called, however he had to get there. He only had to decide to go.

The same is true for you and I. God never asks us to choose whether we will walk on water. He asks us to choose to go to Him, as He calls us, where He calls us, when He calls us.

We spend so much of our time trying to figure out if we can, should, would or just how we might do what God is asking, go where God is calling. But that's just distraction. The longer you linger, the heavier the holy moment hangs until you may miss it altogether while you're trying to decide whether or not you've got the details. If you want the holy moment, go back to the simple choice:

Jesus is calling. Will you go?

Walk on Water

If the measure of our faith is our willingness to swim and not our ability to walk on water, then why is that story even in the Gospel? Why does God tell us about Peter's failure to do something we weren't actually created to do?

Fair question.

I don't claim to understand why everything that is in the Bible is in the Bible. Some of it, I truly wonder. There's a passage in the Old Testament where Saul was hunting David and went into the cave where David was hiding "to relieve himself." I didn't need to know that. Someone, somewhere, was divinely inspired to believe I did. Now I do. I don't know why.

But here's what I get from Peter's water-walking, and this is the thought I want to share with you:

This episode is a story of faith - in both Christ and self. Everyone on that boat knew they weren't supposed to walk on water. That's why they were terrified when Jesus showed up standing on the waves. But Peter says, "I want to do that." We don't know why. We don't know what possessed Peter to want to attempt this feat.

The line in the Gospel says, "If it is really you, tell me to come to you on the water." There were a lot of other ways Peter could have answered the question, "Is it really you?" without putting himself in harm's way. But this is his choice, and Jesus responds, "Ok. Come."

This is the crux of the lesson of water-walking that I think we often forget: Peter didn't go when he simply wanted to; he went when he was called. 

As I said yesterday, I think so many of us judge our faith by our ability to walk on water, and my question in response to that is: Did Jesus call you onto the water? If He didn't, even if you pull it off, it's not faith. It's cool. It's unique. Good for you. But it's not faith. Faith is trusting God for what He asks of you, not for what He asked of someone else.

Which leads me to what I think the point of this story is - it's an invitation to understand the dynamic between what God asks of you, what He creates in you, what He makes possible in you, and who you are.

Peter fell in. We so often attribute this to his lack of faith in Christ, who called him onto the water. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. I think it's easier to believe this was a sign of Peter's lack of faith in himself. Knowing what we know of Peter, I think it's quite possible that he believed God could do what He was doing and believed God could ask him to do what He was doing and believed God could make it possible for him to do what He was asking him to do...but he could hardly believe he could do it.

Isn't that the way it is with our faith? It's easy to believe God could do this or that thing, even this or that impossible thing, but it's absurd to think He could do it with us. I mean, we know us. We know who we are, and it's hard to believe that He could do anything with us, let alone the impossible. That's the struggle of faith. It's not that we just have to believe in God, it is that we also must believe in God in us, and that is where Peter failed. That is where we often fail.

This is the lesson of water-walking. It's not that we should always be above the waves. It's not that we go walking to Jesus on the water so we can show Him we believe. It's that 1) we wait until God calls us and then 2) we believe in the God who is calling, we believe in the calling, we believe He will make it possible, and we believe He will make it possible in us. And then we go.

That's faith, the way it was meant to be. That's water-walking.

Swim

By what standard do you measure your faith?

When we look at the Scriptures and try to figure out what true faith looks like, I think for many of us, it comes back to to Gospels. To one scene in particular - the time when Peter tries walking on the water. Isn't that what you think of as absolute faith?

It's kind of what we want, isn't it? We want the kind of rock-solid, confident faith that is able to stand on any trouble this world may roll our way, that is able to cross the tumult, that is able to keep its ground. Walking on water is the perfect metaphor for faith.

Or is it?

The other night, I had the opportunity to rescue a baby seal who had become stranded in my living room. I cradled it in my lap as we looked out the bay window to view the world before us. I remember wondering how it had gotten here, but with my eyes locked on it, compassion overwhelmed me and the only thing I could think about what getting that little creature back to the sea. (If you haven't figured out by now, this was a dream. If you know me, you know I don't put a lot of stock in dreams, but sometimes they amuse me and in reflection, I find something valuable to take away.)

I looked out the window and the street was an ocean. I looked back into my lap and there was another, larger seal lying next to us. I'm not sure exactly how it happened but the next image I had was the two - lost baby and big friend - seal-walking down the driveway toward the sea. I watched out the window as the big seal dove in and started to swim away. Then I watched as the little one stood on its flippers and started to walk across the water.

Do you understand the implications of a seal walking across the ocean?

I woke up laughing, amused. I grew a little sadder as I continued to ponder the dream. What was the seal so afraid of? Why wouldn't it just let itself swim? After all, it was created to swim.

So were you. So was I.

There is not one human who naturally walks on water. There is no one among us who can stay above the tumult. There's not one of us who can overcome the waves. We weren't meant to. You and I...were created to throw ourselves in, to launch off the dry land and into the sea. We were made for depth, for currents, for waves. We were made to be overwhelmed. Isn't that what the water feels like when you throw yourself in? Isn't it nothing more than a glorious overwhelming? That's what we were made for!

And here we are judging our faith by our ability to stand. I just don't think that's the thing at all. And what does it say about Jesus? It says that He stands above it all and waits for us to come walking to Him, like He waited for Peter outside of that boat. It says that He expects us to not give in, to be able to stand, to walk on the water. But that's not what He says.

Jesus came not to call us out of the water, but to lead us into it. His entire ministry was in the overwhelmed places of the world. He took Himself into the homes of tax collectors and sinners, onto the streets of torn towns, into the walls of a broken temple. He took Himself into the mess, threw Himself into the waves. He calmed a few storms, sure, but do you think the two or three storms we read about were the only times it thundered in three years of His ministry? Of course not. Most of the time, He was riding them out like the rest of us.

He's the One that came to teach us how to swim. He came to show us the way to the ocean. He came to throw Himself in so that maybe, just maybe, we would have the courage to follow.

Maybe it's not walking on water that is the measure of faith.

Maybe the measure of our faith is whether or not we will swim.

Eternal Harvest

If you are faithful in sowing seed, in planting well, the time will come for the harvest. Here's the question: are you still hungry for corn?

That is, do you still long for the very thing you planted or have your tastes changed my now? This is the cautionary tale of the planter.

Because what is the truth about the harvest? The truth is that it doesn't come overnight. It doesn't come in the next day or the next week or the next month. A few seasons have to pass before the seed you've planted grows into something valuable, which is why you have to consider just what it is you're sowing.

This is why I think so many people are perpetually dissatisfied with their lives. We simply forget about the seasons and turn toward the harvest without consider the growth process in between - because as the seasons are changing, so are we. Imagine at this point in your life, you are focused on that big promotion at work. So you ready the ground, prepare yourself to make the big moves necessary to acquire the attention of the promoting manager. Then you put in the work and diligently fulfill your duties, above and beyond, with one eye on the corner office. A season passes as you're proving yourself, and then you get there. The job is yours for the taking. But do you still want it? Does it mean as much in the harvest as it did when you planted it? Sometimes, sure. Often times, no. Because come harvest time, you're reflecting on the passing season and realizing how different you are now, one way or the other, and what seemed so important in the spring doesn't hold so much in the fall.

I'll let you fill in the blanks.

The truth is that so many of the things we're planting don't matter to us in the harvest because in the passing of seasons, we change. Our longings change. Our ideals change. Our understandings change. And by necessity, our appetites change. You know this much is true from the farmer's tale - if you only planted the things you wanted to eat, without accounting for the seasons, we'd never have pumpkins. Because at the time you have to plant them, nobody's thinking pumpkin pie. We're thinking fresh greens and bright berries and aromatic herbs; we're not thinking nutty, earthy, harvest deliciousness. Not in March or April. But thank the good Lord someone knows that in October, I'm going to want pumpkin and they plan accordingly. (I'm already eating pumpkin and persimmon this year. Too early?)

I think this is why Jesus told so many parables of the farmer and the seed, the harvest and the fields. I think He wanted to get us in a planter's state of mind so that we would understand exactly what it is that we sow. He wants us to think about the season we're in, what our appetite says now, and what we need to plant for the next season so that we're not disappointed in the harvest. So that when we want pumpkin, we have it.

That's not to say we can't think short-term; it is to say we simply need a little understanding. Not every crop takes so long to grow. Plant Zucchini at Easter, and you will have it in April. And May. And June. And July. And August. And every month until the frost kills it or you pull the darned thing out of the ground because you don't know what you'll do with one more zucchini. But if you don't plant your pumpkins in the spring, there won't be any in the fall. You have to know what you're sowing.

So I ask you that question: what are you sowing? And what do you want to harvest? Praise has a pretty quick turnaround time. Plant praise today and you will harvest it tomorrow. And the next day and the next day.... Hope, on the other hand, has a longer growing period. Confident assurance, even longer still. And a few seasons may pass before you see it, which is why you have to plant such things in a ground that doesn't change. Solid ground, if you will. The good soil of God who will be faithful to grow it through your seasons so that when you're ready, so is it and when it's ready, so are you and the passing of seasons hasn't changed either of you so much that the hope is irrelevant. No, it tastes mighty good right about now.

Kind of like pumpkin. Delicious, delicious pumpkin.