Daily Lesson for June 8, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 14 verses 25 through 33:

 25And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ 28 Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ 29He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. 30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

In Jim Collins’s book “How the Mighty Fall” he writes about companies which were formerly known as great, but who later took a hard fall. The downward spirals of these companies all followed a similar pattern, what Collins identified as:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

That was pretty much Peter. At the height of the story, he looked invincible. He was literally riding the waves. And he must have looked proud doing it. But his undisciplined pursuit took him too far out, and at the very moment when he was walking on water, he was also beginning to sink. 

But there’s also some good news in this story. Peter was not too proud to cry for help. He avoided Collins’s Stage 5.  He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live. And he wanted to live bad enough that he was willing to yell for help.  In other words, he confessed that couldn’t do it alone. And that’s the opposite of pride and the beginning of the journey back into the boat. 

I quote her all the time, Julian of Norwich: “First the fall, then the redemption; and both the grace of God.”

And that’s the miracle in the story, not the walking on water, but the sinking and the saving and the grace of being welcomed back into the boat just like everybody else.