One of my favorite stories from the Gospels is that of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter stepping out to do the same.

When the disciples first saw Jesus walking on the water they were afraid. They thought it was a ghost because they had never seen anything like this before. Jesus quickly identified Himself and told the disciples not to fear.

Peter was not totally convinced, so he boldly comes out with this challenge: “If it is You, call me to come to you on the water”. Peter knew that only the real Jesus could do that. So Jesus calls him, and Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water towards Jesus.

Now here are some keys:
While Peter had his eyes on Jesus he was fine. He was able to walk on the water, something that is humanly impossible.

But the waves were a bit boisterous and soon Peter changes his FOCUS. Now instead of looking up at Jesus, he looks down at the waves and so starts to sink. As soon as he starts to go down into the water, of course fear grips him, he panics and cries out for help.

Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Peter saying: You have little faith, why did you doubt?

What actually caused Peter to doubt?
He changed focus. He did not LOSE FAITH – he changed the OBJECT of his FAITH.

Fear is faith in evil. It is faith in bad things happening.
Fear is distorted faith or faith focused on evil. Pure faith focuses on the good.

Fear is actually wrongly focused faith.

• When you have faith, you can believe for the best.
• When you have fear, you can only believe for the worst.

So my question for today is: What is the focus of your faith?

• Are your thoughts concentrating on the good and expecting the best?
• Are your thoughts concentrating on the negative situations and expecting the worst?

It is not possible to have both faith and fear. They are extreme opposites.

They cannot live together.

So again, what are you focusing on today?

P.S. You can read the complete story in Matthew 14:24-33 here