Where is your focus?

When Jesus walked on water, Peter climbed out of the boat to meet Him.

Matthew 14 14:29

He said, "Come ahead."

14:30

But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, "Master, save me!"

14:31

Jesus didn't hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, "Faint-heart, what got into you?"

~

The Message Bible

Accidents, sickness, theft, endless unemployment, money or lack of it, unfairness!... Lack of love, restlessness, problems in the family, no family, problem with friends, no friends, bullshit, anguish, depression..!

It seems like as soon as a problem is solved a new one takes its place, and often it's even worse then the one before.

Everybody's talking about problems.. It's in the music and in the movies, TV shows.. everywhere.

The pop idol Pink sings about family problems and taking pills, Curt Cobain wants to die and later fulfills his own death wish.

We've got pills to help us sleep and pills to keep us awake. At the same time these pills are used as something to do to spice up a party.

This is not the fate of only those who don't have Christ in there lives, we all know this from experience. Accually one of the most frequent promises Jesus gave His disciples was...

In this world you will have trouble.” John 16:33

Even our own christian music artists clothe our anguish in melodies. Mac Powell from Third Day sings - ”When You are lonely and it feels like the whole world is falling on you.”

We as christians have someone to turn to though, which we also do and especially in these situations. We comfort ourselves in verses like Isa 40:29. ”He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the week”. But at the same time that we turn to Christ we have a question.. Jesus.. Why?

Why haven't you solved my problems? Why did this happen in the first place?

Then we've got the quiet non rebeling typ that says - "God must have a reason for all this."

But our focus is still on the problem, still on the "storm".

If we keep our focus on the storm we, just like Peter, are going to sink. The storm will take over.

When Peter climbed out of that boat it wasn't calm seas, if you read a couple verses back - Matt 14:24 By this time the boat was in the middle of the sea and was being battered by the waves, because the wind was against them.

So the sea is roaring especialy for Peter that was right in the middle of it. When he gets out of that boat he has a complete faith in that Jesus will take care of him. So what happened?

Instead of focusing on Jesus, he starts focusing on the problems around him, he focused on the storm and he starts to sink. When he then calls out to Jesus to save him - Jesus didn't calm the storm so Peter could swim back to the boat. No, Jesus grabs ahold of him and asks.. "What got into you?!"

When I felt like my whole world was dark from depts and problems that I just couldn't handle anymore, I cried out to Jesus and asked - Jesus! I have had faith in you, why haven't you helped me yet?

His answer to me was - Aleczandra, Focus on ME and I will teach you to walk on top of the storm.

At that moment I understood what Jesus meant by what He said to Peter. It's not about us living a problem free life, or a life where God just calms the storm so we can swim back to shore. We are always gonna have problems, BUT if we focus on Jesus instead of the problem, we will learn to walk on top of the storm.