Cold Feet

In Matityahu 14:23-33, we read that Yeshua walked on water. Water. The stuff of oceans, lakes and wave pools. A thirty-something carpenter, presumably no light weight, accomplished the absolutely unthinkable. Surely, His body still possessed all the mass it had when He walked on land. Yet, somehow, He was able to suspend the known effects the human body has on water (namely, to displace it) and kept it solid, so to speak, beneath His feet. That is absolutely amazing to me. Admittedly, I've taken the details of that event for granted most of my adult life. Assuming that I would never possess the ability to walk on water myself, and believing there probably wasn't much of a lesson here, I've tended to relegate this event to the category of "stuff Yeshua did just to be amazing".

Perhaps, even more amazing than that, though, is the fact that Kefa did it too. Kefa wanted so intensely to be just like His Master. We can safely assume that Kefa had never before walked on water. Chances are he hadn't discovered the secret to this astonishing feat in his free time. I don't think he could have even imagined being able to suspend the known effects the human body has on water - but his Master was doing it, and He was calling him out to do it, too. In this moment, Kefa realized that Yeshua chose him because He believed that he, as His talmid, could be just like Him. While we don't see any hesitation on Kefa's part to step out of the boat, I'm certain that he, for a split second, thought back to all the things he witnessed his Master doing over the last year or so. With all this in mind, and fueled by faith, Kefa stepped out believing that Yeshua could hold him up. He'd keep him afloat no matter what.

Now, there's no way to know what that actually felt like, but I imagine Kefa didn't feel like he was doing very much himself. It was a miracle after all. But for that moment he was just like his Master. I'm sure it was pretty awesome for him and all those that witnessed it. And then, he doubted. But what did he doubt exactly? We may have assumed that he doubted Yeshua's power. But the text doesn't say that. Besides, Yeshua was still standing on the water just fine. From this, it would seem that Kefa actually doubted himself. He may have merely doubted his capacity to be empowered to be like Yeshua. And in Yeshua's response, "Why did you doubt?" we witness His desire for Kefa to look within to determine just what went wrong. What would have been set into motion in Kefa's life had he remained on the water's surface and walked back to the boat with Yeshua? We can ask ourselves, why do we doubt His power to enable us to live like He did? And what are we missing out on simply because we don't believe?

This is an extremely important issue for today's followers of Yeshua. If we believe that Yeshua calls us to be His talmidim because He desires to instruct us, empower us, and fill us with His Spirit, not to place us in some sort of sanctified storage, but in order for us to walk like He did, then we should believe in ourselves, too. If not, we run the risk of of not being empowered, not living as He did, and ultimately, missing the amazing opportunities He has planned for us.