Boat Stories
Dear Church Family,
We have been walking through our Boat Stories series — and this week took us out onto the water with Peter.
We looked at Matthew 14:22-33, the story of Jesus walking on the sea in the middle of the night, and Peter's brief, wobbly walk out to meet him. It's a story a lot of us grew up on as a lesson in boldness — "get out of the boat like Peter." But this week we asked a different question: what if the story was never really about grading Peter's performance at all?
A few things we sat with together:
Jesus's words to the terrified disciples — "Take heart, it is I" — echo the very name God gave Moses at the burning bush. This wasn't just Jesus saying, "it's me." It was a claim about who he is.
Peter's request, his walk, and his sink all happen fast — and so does Jesus's response. Matthew uses the word "immediately" three times in this one story, which is unusual for him. Grace doesn't make you wait for it.
Whether Peter's initial ask was bold faith or something closer to testing God, and whether his cry to be saved took great faith or almost none — Jesus met both the same way. The hand came out before the correction did.
Here's where we landed: this story isn't asking you to figure out if you're a "walker" or a "sinker" this week. It's inviting you to see who was standing on the water in the first place — a Savior who is powerful, persistent, and present exactly when it counts. You may sink. The promise was never that you won't. The promise is that you won't drown.
-Pastor Aaron Perry