One of my favorite moments in Peter’s story occurs right after Peter and his eleven friends hand out food to five thousand of their closest friends because Jesus took what they had and blessed it. After doing this tremendous miracle, Jesus tells the disciples to go on without Him while He stays back and spends time with His Father in prayer. Peter and the others are crossing the Sea of Galilee when a great storm arises. It’s early in the morning and still dark; the waves begin pushing them back so that they’re not going anywhere. The more they push forward, the more they stay put. I imagine them working so hard to paddle, getting soaking wet and more anxious as the waves continue to crash around them. Then suddenly in the darkness, a man strolls toward them on the beating, crashing, treacherous waves. They’re terrified and cry out, “Ghost!” Immediately after they cry out, Jesus responds, “Take courage, it is I. Don’t be afraid.” This is the moment in the story I want to freeze and study.

As I laid my beaten head down on my pillow, I groaned, “I feel incapable.” As soon as the word incapable came out of my mouth, I knew I was right where God wants me to be, and I slipped into sweet sleep. It was no mistake that Romans 4 had been in my Bible study twice that week: “If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust Him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-Him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.” (Romans 4:4-5 MSG)