When Our Focus Changes

 

 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.

 ²³ And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. 

 ²⁴ But the boat was now in the middle of the sea,^[a] tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

²⁵ Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

  ²⁶ And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.

²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

^{2 8} And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

²⁹ So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 

 ³⁰ But when he saw that the wind was boisterous,^[b] he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

  ³² And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

³³ Then those who were in the boat came and^[c] worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14:22-33

 

 

So you have probably been wondering what lesson did Lisa learn? And what is it that she has a better understanding of now? Well it is time for me to try to explain to you. And I pray that God gives me the words so that you too may be blessed by this post. I know I am not the only one who struggles with things like this.

 

So Sabbath afternoon - the speaker shared a bit of personal information that blessed me and began my learning of this new way of looking at things. She shared that she had always struggled with her weight. (probably a size 14-16 at the biggest) My first thought was a first step would be to learn to accept yourself. I know this was something important for me to do. Learn to love yourself as created in the image of God Himself! It tells us that in the Bible:

 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;

 male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:27

 

Then she shared her personal experience of God showing her Peter when Jesus was walking on water and when Peter wanted to walk on water too. God told Peter to come to Him and Peter obeyed. He stepped out of the boat and began to walk to Jesus. And as long as his eyes were on Jesus and as long as he trusted God he continued to walk on the water. 

(if your not familiar with this story - read the texts above)

 

But when he started to doubt and took his eyes off of Jesus, he began to sink.

 

Jesus was there to save him. But Peter learned an important lesson. It was important to keep his eyes on Jesus and to trust Him as well.

Then Erika, the speaker, said that for her it seemed that she would work towards losing weight and then after a bit she would begin to think how good she was doing - looking down at herself and admiring herself and then she would fail again. Learning that she needed to keep her eyes on Jesus.

This really helped me but I felt deep in my soul that this was not the complete lesson that I need to learn. There was more. And so I prayed and asked God to show me what I needed to learn. To lead me and to help me understand the rest of the lesson. And He answered that prayer the next morning. And because it is going to take me a bit to explain that part - I will have a second part of this post. SO check back for it! :O)