Don't Look At The Water

Saturday I ate lunch with some very nice people in a semi-spontaneous gathering. One part of the lunch was spent on me complaining (non redhat readers substitute more appropriate "b" word here...) about the general unfairness of life. How it always seems like those who work hard get stuck digging for change in the Blazer's ashtray while those who sit back and idle their way through life keep having society hand them blank checks.

The always-wise John H. summed it up nicely, thusly. "You're basically talking about Ecclesiastes."

I suppose he's hit the nail on the head. Although in truth I'm always less of a Solomon and more of a Peter. Not the good post-Quo-Vadis Peter, either. I'm the namby-pamby Peter who is constantly whining at Jesus, demanding proof and missing the general point of it all. Granted, I do have a lot to whine about these days. I won't list everything out again because I live in Nashville and everyone else has already cornered the market on writing country songs. Which is what my life has become this summer. (On a tangent, did you know that many of the greatest love songs are actually about the death of a dog? Case in point: "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?")

So the other night early morning I'm lying in bed bawling my eyes out over the general craptasticness of it all when I "hear" this voice. For those of you of the athiest persuasion, I'm not hearing voices. But I promise you that if you are in dialogue with the Holy Spirit you can tell when your being "talked" to. It's a thought you hear in the deepest part of your soul. That's the only way I can describe it.

"Don't look at the water."

And that's when it hit me, early Sunday morning. That all of this--my dog's health, stretching a budget that's been motheaten by unexpected emergencies, continuing pain and all the rest--is the water. Logic says you that you won't make it and that you'll drown. But faith says that you've seen Jesus do it and you are compelled to do it, too. To run childlike across the whitecaps to embrace the Lord.

But if you're anything like me at 4:30 in the morning all you can see is the sea. And I was up to my eyeballs in the green froth of Galilee. The idea of NOT looking seems both impossible and utterly freeing. I've been trying my best to lock eyes on God's goodness.

This is what I've seen since:

--An unexpected meal cooked for us by a woman from our church.
--An unexpected check that will cover a large portion of the dog's vet bill for this week
--Several nice encounters with good people who have cheering words, good jokes and warm hearts


And that's just in one day. I keep telling myself that the grievous circumstances of right now are impossible to live through. And I'm probably correct. But it's also impossible to walk on the sea. But that's been done. All we have to do is keep our eyes on God and not look at the water.