New beginnings/getting through life's struggles: A well known evangelist of a few year ago wrote a book entitled "How to get through your struggles"; it was about giving money to the Lord,s work and if you gave you could expect something back and since about everything can be fixed with money that would help you through your struggles. And wouldn't you know it' this particular evangelist made it easy to give to his ministry; sort of a prosperity doctrine. Don't get me wrong...I like to prosper too, nothing wrong with prosperity. However I think the evangelist was prospering the most. But this entry today is about struggles, life's struggles. The disciples of Jesus in Matthew ch. 14 were struggling; the Bible says they were toiling in rowing. They were out on a really rough sea, the wind was against them, the boat was without doubt filling up with water too. Some of them were likely bailing as fast as they could and they were far from land.
Have you ever been in a situation like that. I can remember as a boy, having grown up on an island, times when the boat we were in(it was probably a dory)was going nowhere even though we were toiling in rowing but we were never far from the shore, however it was a relief when we got in close to the beach and relative safety. Life is like that sometimes; unsafe...unpredictable, plain old hard work, bills pile up, sickness comes, children get unruly maybe, worse still marriages fail and families break up and life is one struggle after another. Jesus' disciples were
in that storm and it was hard...there was a huge storm last night that stretched half way across North America and we are sitting home as a result instead of winging our way to the vacation spot we are supposed to be at. The storms of life can be pretty big sometimes and can really upset our plans as well. But out of seemingly nowhere comes Jesus walking on the water and gets in the boat with us and immediately the storm ceases to exist and we find ourselves high and dry ....safe on dry land on the other side of the storm. He did it for the 12....why not for you? Look to Him and be saved. There's a song that simply says "give up! give it over to Jesus, (repeat two more times) and He'll make a way for you.....I believe it