Linda Fernandes-Bailey
August 7, 2005
Stepping Out In Faith
Recently I took a trip to South Carolina to the University that my daughter will be attending starting in August actually. We had two days of orientation sitting through various talks from the president, professors and administrators of all sorts. The talks focused on what to expect when you send your child to college. The fact that the university will consider your “child” an “adult” and they encourage you to do the same. Then they talk about the pitfalls…too much drinking…too much time at the beach…not enough studying. Left on their own students will sometimes make bad choices…but it will all work out they will learn…trust us we want students to succeed here. Don’t worry they will be fine. At different points during the two days you could feel the anxiety…the fear. Through various questions from parents you could tell many of us were just not ready for this…to send our child off…to accept this is no longer a child but a young adult. We were not ready to think of our babies out there… on their own. After the long drive down all I could think was this is really far from home!! This was a stormy time in life and it felt like we were being asked to walk on water. What do you mean you don’t send grades to the parents? What do you mean we should allow the student to make their own decisions? What do you mean we shouldn’t come flying down there when our child calls in distress? They have to adjust all on their own? The storm indeed was getting stronger…waves crashing…wind howling. How could we possibly weather a storm like this? My logical mind kept saying many kids have gone off to college and both they and their parents survived…some of them were my own nieces and nephews I knew adulthood is inevitable for all children…but mine?? My logical mind was even excited…this was such a nice school a good fit I was excited for my daughter. Yet in one of the talks I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. This is a stormy time of change… uncertainty…Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the words of Jesus “Take heart…it is I, do not be afraid” DO NOT BE AFRAID. I don’t know about you sometimes Jesus this feels pretty stormy! “You have little faith why do you doubt?” he replies.
Most of us live our lives somewhere between faith and doubt don’t we? We want to be people of faith. WE come to church… we pray… we read scripture…even participate in service work. Yet sometimes when we come upon a stormy time in life we doubt God’s presence in the midst of it. The storm might be a normal life change like sending your child to college, or it could be stormier than that perhaps a child struggling with addiction, a divorce, failing health, grieving the death of a loved one…there are so many storms possible. In midst of the storm all we can feel is heavy winds and high waves…everything feels out of control. Fear overcomes us. It is hard to believe that God is there beside us wiping our tears…telling us…do not be afraid…I am with you. We want to believe it but we are so attached to our fear…we are so attached to controlling the outcome. Surely we can man our own boat. We convince ourselves I can handle this alone.
Now I don’t know about you but I don’t even like storms especially as experienced from a boat. In fact I’ve been known to feel like I was drowning while wearing a life jacket…when there was no storm in sight. My family pokes fun at me constantly. So reading this story I could really relate to the disciples fear…I could just about feel it… in fact I began to have dreams about deep water.
I think that we have a fantasy about the disciples. We believe that because they walked with Jesus…saw him…heard him…followed him that it must have been easier for them than it is for us. After all Jesus was right there. We are left with the story…second hand…third hand it’s harder for us to be sure isn’t it? But the gospel stories paint a different picture. The disciples are quite human like us…they too live between doubt and faith. They have witnessed miracles…heard great sermons… been taught by Jesus himself. BUT when the waves are too high and the wind too powerful they are overcome by fear. They cry out “Jesus save us!” Yet when they see Jesus coming towards them they can hardly believe it…it must be a ghost…their fear increases. Finally Peter cries out “If it is you Lord command me to come to you on the water” But, when Peter walks on water he can barely keep his eyes on Jesus. He is overcome by fear and begins to sink…all he can see are the waves… he feel the wind getting stronger. His faith is waning…even with Jesus standing right there. He can hardly believe how God has empowered Jesus…he can hardly believe his own potential.
I have often thought that one of the great lessons of Jesus’ humanity is to teach us the great potential we have as humans. He sets the bar high. And Peter thinks… Walk on water are you kidding…look at these waves…the wind is too strong…help me Jesus I’m drowning. Yet for that split second Peter was walking on water. He had a brief glimpse of his potential. He could indeed weather the storm if he just kept his eye on Jesus. But instead he gets distracted by the storm…consumed by it…he can’t see a way out. In his humanity Jesus shows what a life might look like if we believe we are empowered by God. Imagine if we could really believe that God is actively working in our lives…and by the way in the lives of our children! (It occurred to me in the middle of my anxiety about sending Shannon off to college that I didn’t really believe that God is active in her life…it wasn’t all about me) If we believe God is actively working in our lives we might in the midst of a storm…step out in faith.
I was reading the other day a commencement speech by Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios. In his speech he tells a few stories from his life about times that seemed like the end of something but ended up to be the beginning of something. The point of the speech was that in hindsight he was able to connect the dots of his life. He actually dropped out of college because he could not see how college would help him figure out what he wanted to do with his life and it was a financial drain on his family. However he began to drop in on classes that interested him once he no longer had to attend the required courses. One of them happened to be a calligraphy class he became fascinated by it but of course saw no practical application. Later when he designed his fist Macintosh computer it all came back to him and was designed into the computer. It became the first computer with beautiful topography. He started Apple in his parents’ basement at the age of 20! By 30 he was fired by Apple which again seemed like a bad thing. But he ended up creating Pixar a company a company that went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film Toy Story and he started another company NeXT which Apple would eventually purchase and then rehire him. He says neither company would have been created had Apple not fired him. All throughout he describes situations he thought were really bad. He describes them as awful times in his life…a storm… times when nothing made sense and were very painful…but in looking back and being able to connect the dots it made sense and some bad things opened the door to good things. He says in his speech that “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something...your gut, destiny, life, karma whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in the world.”
Now I don’t know if Steve Jobs believes in God. But when I read his speech I couldn’t help but connect the dots to today’s scripture lesson. Steve had been through many storms in his life. Times that seemed too painful to bare. Times when the waves were too high and the wind too strong. Times when he walked a fine line between faith and doubt. But something had sustained him and in the end his life unfolded. I’d like to think of that something as God…at least that’s what I believe. When the waters are high and the wind too strong God reaches out to us and says Take heart…it is I, do not be afraid. Have faith…I am with you…Trust me.
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