Undefeatable Hope
Written by Erin Richer
When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost! ” they said, and cried out in fear. Immediately Jesus spoke to them. “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Matthew 14:25-29
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.
The waves aren’t calmed yet. The storm is still raging. It’s still pitch black in the middle of the night. But now Jesus has identified himself.
And the plot of the story immediately turns. Until this moment the disciples were mission-focused. Their mission was to go to the other side of the lake where Jesus said He would meet them. But now, in the midst of the raging sea and pitch black night, Jesus is near, and suddenly what they thought they were doing has nothing to do with the story. A whole new story is about to take place.
Peter wants to be all up in whatever Jesus is doing. He basically says, “If it’s you, then I’m not afraid of this crazy storm either. If it’s you, call me out into it.” Jesus responds, “Come.” Peter steps out.
Can we just take a moment to put ourselves in Peter’s boat? Watch a man recognize the love of His life—the God-Man in whom he’s put his complete trust—and step out of a boat into treacherous seas just to be part of the miracle with his Master.
What has you captivated right now? The seas? The man with such great trust? Peter’s request to go out? The Master standing calmly in the midst of it all? The fact that the Master has invited Peter into the miracle—and to what end?
For me, I see a moment of transition. A moment of overwhelming darkness and terror immediately changed to adventure and excitement as. soon. as. Jesus identifies Himself in the midst of it.
Not long ago, I went through a time that seemed so dark and so treacherous and so overwhelming I couldn’t imagine how I was going to survive it. It was a verse in Jeremiah that pierced my heart: “Because of your hand upon me, I sat alone.” I read that verse and knew this was exactly what was happening in my life. God had put me in that season of darkness because He was doing something. God identified Himself in the darkness. It was very much like Peter in the boat. “Erin, take courage, It is I.” In the darkness, in the sadness, in the loneliness, take courage, it is I. This is all it took and peace like a river washed over me, because now I had hope.
Hope is an expectation of what is yet to be.
While I had no idea how or when this awful part of my story was going to end, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that in His hands, in His presence, in His story everything was not just going to be okay, it was going to be amazing.
Sure enough, I learned lessons from that season that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and I forged friendships at a depth I didn’t know was possible. It’s quite possible I would have gotten through that season with the same exact outcomes if God had never identified Himself in the midst of it. But because He did, I was able to hope for the days I knew were yet to come. As Bernard Williams once said: “There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.”
Everyone experiences times of overwhelming darkness and circumstances, times it seems that God has abandoned you or sent you ahead with the promise of “catching up.” But God. God is never far from us. Sure, sometimes He places us in circumstances that seem insurmountable, but only to do a mighty work so that more of His character can be known, or so that He can be known by more people, and most often, both.