Peter walking on the water.  It always captures my attention.  Now I don’t know exactly what the waves looked like that night, but they had to be something fierce as they were giving the disciples trouble. The NASB states it this way, “But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary.”  The disciples were struggling to get their boat across the water, of that we can be sure.  And then comes Jesus walking on the water.

I just love the way Peter is so often portrayed as jumping in with both feet-this time quite literally.  He steps out of the boat and onto the water to walk towards Jesus.  Then he looks around at the waves.  Have you ever done that?  Stepped out to do something and then looked around and realized the enormity of the situation and your own limitations? 

What really strikes me this morning is that Jesus did not calm the wind and waves until they were back in the boat.  Isn’t that just God’s way sometimes?  He keeps us from drowning out there in the wind-tossed waves; not calming them until the time is right.  I would much prefer He calm those waves as soon as I cry out to Him, but that is not always His way.  These are the moments when I have learned what it means to trust Him.  To trust Him not only to eventually calm the wind and waves, but to see me safely through them in the meantime. This is such a timely reminder to me as I find myself once again in the storms of life, praying for the wind to cease, crying out for rescue.  This is no time to take my eyes off of Jesus.  I would like to think this is a lesson I have learned, but it is still a daily choice. A moment by moment choice.  A choice to wake up and spend time with God’s word, spend time in prayer, spend time filling my mind with songs of worship and praise.  Spend time delighting myself in Almighty God.  I am put in mind of the refrain from an old hymn written by Helen Howarth Lemmel in 1918:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace


O soul, are you wearied and troubled?  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

May grace, peace, and mercy abound, 

He led me to a place of safety;
    he rescued me because he delights in me. (Psalm 18:19)

What am I supposed to think about God delighting in me?  Why would He delight in us?  At first I am tempted to simply ignore it as not really possible; after all God knows me even better than I know myself so why would a holy God ever delight in me?  The problem with that is it puts His delight in me totally on who I am and what I do. So I ask again, how could God ever delight in me?  And if I think that God delights in me because of who I am and what I do then I run the risk of delighting in myself instead of in God.

I did a little search to see what others had to say and found an article by John Piper quite helpful.  First, he points out what God is really delighting in:
“Therefore, when we say God rejoices in our thinking and feeling and doing what is right, we mean that he delights in our seeing, savoring, and showing his own supreme value. God values our valuing him. God delights in our delighting in him.”

And then he points to the risk of misunderstanding what God’s delight in us really means:
“The proper reason to be glad that God delights in our delight in him is because it confirms that our delight is truly in God. This fixes our gaze more steadfastly on him and deepens our joy in his beauty. But there is a devastating way to respond to God’s commendation of us. What if we hear God’s praise and are drawn away from delighting in God to delighting in God’s delighting in us? What if we hear his praise as a tickler of what we really enjoy, namely, being made much of? What if the bottom line of what makes us happy is not God himself, but God’s attention, God’s praise? If that is the bottom line, then we are not delighting in God, but only using delight in God to get commendations. That would be devastating. When God’s delight in us lures us to delight in being delighted in, we are ceasing to do the very thing God delights in”

I like Piper's thoughts because they confirm the conclusion I was beginning to reach.  But more than that, Piper’s thoughts line up with this Psalm of David, and with David’s life.  There is no doubt that David delighted in the Lord. That he treasured God, trusted God, obeyed God.  And in so doing God delighted in him.  We read in Acts 13:22 that David was a man after God’s own heart.  But we know David was far from perfect; so what made him a man after God’s own heart?  That answer is also found in the very same verse in Acts, “After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do’” God found in David a man who would be obedient to all that God wanted him to do because He was a man who had put his faith in God.  God delighted in that.  That idea makes a whole lot more sense to me, God delights in me because I delight in Him, I treasure Him, trust Him and obey Him.  I do not do it perfectly, far from it-but God knows my heart and that the overwhelming desire of my life is to live in such a way as to honor Him.  To live trusting Him even when the road is tough.  To praise Him even in the storms.  To wait for Him to answer the cries of my heart believing all that He says about Himself.  So as I consider this truth--that God delights in me--I am led to further delight myself in the Lord and His great mercies.  Oh, Lord, keep me from thinking more highly of myself than I ought!

 May grace, peace, and mercy abound, 

(John Piper’s article can be found here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-god-tells-us-he-delights-in-his-children)

“I love You, O Lord, my strength.”
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies. (Psalm 18:1-3)

Today’s Psalm was written by David after God delivered him from all of his enemies, including King Saul.  The Psalms are where I have always turned when my heart is troubled.  David seems to capture in much better words than I ever could the struggle to live in troubled times while trusting in the Lord.  Several of the Psalms were written while he was on the run from King Saul.  David had been anointed to replace Saul as the king of Israel, but he would not raise his hand against Saul, he waited and waited for God to remove Saul.  Even when David was given the perfect opportunities to kill Saul he refused to do it.  He was a most unusual man in this regard.

I am still trying to learn the lessons of letting God be in control.  There are things that I would love to fix, and fix right now.  That is not always the way of God.  And so, like David, I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised.  I take refuge in His presence and rely on Him for the strength to face each day.  To trust Him to rescue me from whatever evil assails me.  And yet, I keep trying to take back “control”-even as I acknowledge my own weakness to do anything about certain circumstances.  I am pretty sure that at times I have not followed David’s wisdom in letting God deal with things instead of taking things into my own hands and forcing an action whose time had not yet come.  In so doing even greater heartache has often occurred.  It is so easy to say, “let go and let God,” it is quite another thing to live it.  His ways are not our ways-anyone who has encountered Jesus knows that. Jesus Himself has told us, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, NLT)  It is a daily process.  It is a daily choice I must make to give up my way, my self, and follow Jesus.

May grace, peace, and mercy abound,