Can you hear the cricket?

Have I got your attention?  The story, as I heard it from a Pastor this past weekend, is this (I told her I was going to pass the information on):

A native New Yorker took a Native American friend on a trip to New York City.  When they got to Times Square, the Native American stopped and listened.  Times Square was as it always is busy with noise everywhere; people walking, talking and traffic noises abound.  The Native American turned and said to his host: "I hear a cricket".  The native New Yorker was astonished: "You what?" he replied.  "I hear a cricket," the other man reinterated.  The New Yorker shrugged and began to look around.  Sure enough there was a cricket on a nearby bush.  While everyone around him was focused on the hustle and bustle of Times Square, the Native American was focused on the song of that one tiny cricket.

I loved this story because it's so true.  What do you expect to hear when you're in Times Square?  You expect to hear the humanity around you; people walking, talking on the phone, cabs going by, buses and honking horns.  If you've never been there, this is seriously one of my favorite places on the planet, it's just a continuous melee of sound and it never stops.  What you don't expect to hear is the song of a small cricket on a bush.  The Native American man in our story was listening for it and so the entire ebb and flow of sound that surrounded him faded into the background until only the cricket could be heard.

Let me take you into Scripture now.  In Matthew chapter 14:22-34 we have the account of Jesus walking on the water toward the disciples who were in a boat being tossed about by a storm.  Take a moment to read it...go ahead...I'll wait.  Done?  Good!  The last thing that those men expected to see on the sea at that moment in time was Jesus walking toward them.  Peter, who is my disciple by the way, says, "If you are Jesus, bid me come to you on the water." 

Jesus doesn't hesitate and says, "Come ahead" and Peter answers the call and steps out of the boat onto the heaving sea.  Note that Scripture doesn't say that the boat held steady for him to step out.  It probably wasn't an easy thing at all for him to do and yet he did it.  He walks on the water toward Jesus, we don't know how far or how long, and then gets distracted by the wind and the waves and begins to sink.  When Peter got distracted, when his focus moved off Jesus, he expected to be overcome by the wind and the waves (my interpretation but really...) and so he was.

Again, Jesus doesn't hesitate when Peter cries out "Lord save me".  Instead He immediately reaches down, grabs Peter, and takes him to the safety of the boat.  He does say "You of little faith, why did you doubt" but why do we always assume that Peter is being scolded?  Why can't it be Jesus saying with love why did you doubt?  I have no idea what the tone of voice was that Jesus used, scripture is in a monotone and we add the inflection to it when we read it.  I read this as a loving, parental tone.  Disciplining?  Yes probably, but loving discipline.

We had a person ask us at the beginning of our itineration process if we walked on water because of an answer we gave to one of the questions.  We said, "no of course not, that's not what we meant at all".  While I was out walking a week ago I finally got an answer to that comment some 16 months later I might add.  "No we don't walk on water, but we certainly could if God so willed it to be."  If you think about it, every time you do what God has told you to do, you get out of the boat and walk on the waves because of HIS strength and HIS ability not your own. 

When you're in Times Square, EXPECT to hear the cricket.  When you're in the Lord, EXPECT to walk on water.  What you look at is what you become.  I choose to look at the Lord and EXPECT all that He has for me from His hand.

Blessings to each!!