Faith

Built for the Storm

/ pastorpete51 / 7 Comments 
And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Mark 4:39 ESV

Because its founding dates back to 1650, my home state of Connecticut, has many interesting historical sites, and one of my favorites is Mystic Seaport, because it shows how the old whaling ships were built. For me, the most astonishing things of the construction of those boats was the prow. Any good prow began its journey as the lower trunk of a large white oak tree, and rather than the usual practice of cutting the tree at its base, it was cut as far above the ground as possible. Then, the men would dig out the entire stump, and from that mass of roots and tree trunk an almost unbreakable piece was sawn for the prow.

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In today’s verse we see Jesus confronting a storm that had His disciples frightened to death. The waves had begun swamping their small fishing boat, and the wind was so wild that they had to shout to be heard. Terrified that they were all about to drown, they woke Jesus, who was somehow calmly taking a nap in the midst of the chaos. Maybe they hoped that Jesus would help bail or at least pray that they could survive. But what He did next, no one even imagined. Jesus calmed the storm with three words. “Peace be still!” His faith was like the prow of those ancient whaling ships. He had come from heaven’s throne to be born a stable and with all the universe under his rule he chose to grow up in a small village. Though Jesus could have made stones into bread, He fasted forty days in the wilderness and overcame every temptation of the devil. But more than even these things, Jesus was, just like that oak tree that was cut down, dug from the ground and fashioned into the forerunner of our salvation. He is the anchor of our soul, the Captain of our ship, the prow of the ark, which is His church, and our shelter in every storm!

Facing Failure

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
But Peter boasted. “No way Lord! Even if everyone fails, You can count on me!” 
Luke 22:33 MNVIT (My not very inspired translation) 

The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly. 
Luke 22:61-62 NIV

When in the middle of the temptations and stresses of daily life, it feels impossible to have the kind of faith that I read about with Daniel spending the night with lions, David facing Goliath and Moses the Red Sea. But when I come to the story of a disciple named Peter, I have hope. Now Peter certainly had his days of great faith, such as when he walked on water and or when he boldly confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Yet when we come to the night of Jesus’ arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, something unexpected happened. At first, Peter seemed brave as he pulled out a sword and hacked off the ear of one of the guys coming for Jesus.  But when Jesus put a stop to his tactics, Peter ran away. Then from a safe distance he sneaked into the courtyard where Jesus was being held. We can’t be sure what Peter had in mind, but maybe he was hoping to find any way to free Jesus. But instead of helping Jesus to escape, Peter ended up denying Him three times.

Sadly, just like Peter, there are times when, despite our good intentions, we utterly fail. Circumstances that we hoped to change, spin completely out of our control and we are left as helpless observers. The things we thought we would never say, we blurt out and the things we never promised not to do; we do. After all our boasting about our faith, we end up falling flat on our faces. But at that moment, while we weep bitterly about our failure, remember what Peter did. He remembered what Jesus said. When three days later, Jesus rose from the dead and showed Himself to the disciples He came for Peter also. But this was a Peter who was a changed person. He had discovered that the strength of His faith did not lie in his determination, strength or ability, but on the love, power and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. He found, just as we can, that our faith does not grow from our successes, but from remembering God’s word in our failures.

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Can You Be Specific?

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment 
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
Psalm 10:17-18 ESV

When we are in trouble, we often busy ourselves in an attempt to find a solution or waste valuable time complaining to others. But while we are rushing around trying to fix things on our own, we forget to simply put our trust in God and ask for His help. Talking about prayer without actually doing it, when we are in a crisis, is like talking about a life jacket, without putting it on after we have fallen overboard! I love that today’s verse, comes at the end of a prayer which King David began in verse one in which he starts by saying. “Why are you so far away?” and “Why are you hiding Yourself?” When we are in trouble, David’s prayer is a great model for us to follow. Notice, he doesn’t start out by mouthing some lifeless, holy sounding words. He tells God exactly how he feels! If you read through the Psalms, you will discover that, not all of them are, “The Lord is my Shepherd” kind of prayers. In fact, complaining to God is actually one of David’s favorite things and God included those prayers of lament because He wanted us to know, that He is listening and that He hears us when we cry out to Him.

First, David begins by being specific in his complaints. As we move on through the next several verses, we find that he doesn’t waste time by just saying, “Everybody hates me, I guess I just go eat worms.” No! David itemizes the things about which he is ticked off and honestly tells God about them. “The wicked is pursuing the poor…the wicked is boasting of his desires…His mouth is filled with cursing…He says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten.” When David does get to the end of his laundry list of issues in verse fourteen, he takes a deep breath and moves on to requests.

Then, David doesn’t pray like we sometimes do – “Bless all the missionaries or bring revival to our nation.” Those are great sounding prayers, but “Rescue the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram or heal my grandchild who is suffering with kidney disease”, are the kind of specific requests, that David prays believing God for specific answers. “Break the arm of the wicked… call his wickedness to account… hear the desire of the afflicted… strengthen their heart.” If you are like me, you may find that writing your requests down will help you to stay on track. Every few weeks when I update my list, I am amazed at how many prayers that God has answered. That brings us to the kind of prayer in today’s verse: specific praise.

Finally, just as we need to be specific when we complain and when we ask for help, God loves it when we are specific when we praise Him. “God is good all the time.” is kind of okay, but “God You were so good when you healed my wife! It was amazing when you brought our mission team home safely from Africa!” and ” Thank you that my granddaughter is getting baptized this week!” are ways of bringing us right into the throne room of God. God does hear, when we cry, but He is interested most in building a true personal relationship with us. A strong relationship with God is forged when we really talk to him as we would to a friend. We tell Him exactly how we are feeling, what are needs are (daily bread), every sin we are sorry for, every commitment we are ready to make, and then give Him praise because we know that He is listening and we trust that He is in control!