Matthew 14:31
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Are we out there on the water with Peter? Have we seen Jesus come near and cried out to Him, “Lord, if it’s you, bid me come unto thee”? Were we brave in taking a step of faith only to find our faith was weaker than we thought, the waves were more terrifying than we thought, Jesus was a little farther away than we thought? But we don’t need to sink very far before we realize just how much we need Jesus to sustain us. We can’t always count on our own faith, but we need the faith that He gives to us. We can’t rely on our own wisdom, but we need the wisdom He gives to us. We can’t go out in our own strength, but we need the strength that He gives to us.

But when Peter cried out, Jesus caught Him immediately. He’ll never let us sink farther than we need to in order to learn that we can trust Him, that we can cry out and expect an answer of some kind, that He will deliver us even when we got ourselves into the mess. Perhaps it is a lesson that, like a baby learning to walk, we can’t rush out independently of God, but we need to hold fast to the one who can sustain us and enable us to take those steps of faith.

Let’s just remember that if we’re going to walk on water, we can’t do it without Jesus. And if we’re going to get out of the boat, we have to believe that He’s the one who is going to allow us to walk instead of drown. And if we find ourselves getting in over our heads, we can cry out to Him and He will immediately catch us. But if we don’t doubt and we don’t fear and we keep our eyes on Him, maybe we make it all the way across.

Sometimes lessons of faith are hard to learn. Sometimes we get wet, but those experiences most certainly change us. We will fall at times as we learn to walk by faith, but Jesus is always there, immediately there, to lift us back up and encourage us to keep going. And as He eases our doubts and fears, as He shows Himself faithful to us, our faith in Him grows and our usefulness grows as we attempt more for Him. So let us go forward in obedience to Jesus, learning to lean on Him.