GETTING PICKED UP

It was eight years ago, but really it seems like yesterday.

My cousin Brenda was standing on one side of Ethan's hospital bed and I on the other.

"How are you?" she asked.

"I'm okay.  But I'm just surprised how I can be really strong one minute, trusting completely in God, and the next minute I am on the floor in a heap."

She reminded me about the story of Peter walking on water toward Jesus during the storm.

Brenda said, "You know, when we were little,  the Sunday School lesson on this story was that because Peter trusted Jesus, he was able to walk on the water.  And then when we got a little older, the lesson was not to take your eyes off of Jesus.  If you do, you will fall."

I agreed. We had the same Sunday School books with the same lessons, the same pictures, and the same warnings.

Then Brenda said, "But the real lesson is, that when we fall, Jesus will be there to pick us up."

Through the years I've thought about that conversation with Brenda, and I've re-read the account of Peter and Jesus on the stormy lake.

What they taught us in Sunday School was true. It's recorded in the book of Matthew, Chapter 14.

But what they didn't teach us is that we are all going to fall.

At one time or another the storms of life are going to get the best of us, and we are going to take our eyes off of Jesus.

And because the love of Jesus is unconditional and perfect, those falls don't change the way He feels about us. Nor do our falls ever keep Him from picking us up.

Brenda and I have both learned this lesson.

We didn't learn it from a Sunday School book.

We learned it from life.

And another lesson we have both learned through Peter's fall and our own falls, is that 

when you fall and fall hard . . .

when you have almost gone under . . .

when you wonder how He's going to pick you up one more time . . .

when you aren't even sure that you want to be picked up . . .

 He does.


And when He picks you up and sets your feet upon a rock, you worship Jesus like you have never worshiped Him before.

"And when they climbed in the boat,
 the wind died down. 

Then those who were in the boat 
worshiped him saying, 

'Truly you are the Son of God.' "

Matthew 14:32

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"He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

He set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand."

Psalm 40:2