Week 37 Matthew 14
I can either a) have faith or else b) not have faith.
If I’m in the first category and I do have faith then I can either a) have a greater amount of faith or else b) have a lesser amount of faith.
That’s the key issue in this story: Peter’s ‘quantity of faith’.
When I think about range-of-faith – minimal faith vs. maximal faith – I think it’d be useful to have a numerical scale (for instance: a #1 might be Almost Zero Faith and #100 might be a Huge Amount of Faith). A scale would tell me exactly how much faith I had. (One downside is that I’d be tempted to compare my score against other people.)
But reading about Peter today I think the better question is: if I have some faith – but it’s in short-supply – how do I expand it?
The story of Peter walking on water isn’t a story about How To Boost Your Faith Score. It’s obvious that Peter did have enough faith to walk on water…initially at least. But almost right away he lost it. And when Jesus saved him he asked Peter the key question why did you doubt me? So doubt reduced Peter’s supply of faith.
This story doesn’t tell me how to get more faith. But it does tell me one thing I should try to avoid so I don’t reduce whatever amount of faith I’ve currently got.
Note: Matthew 14:31 (NLT)