This picture is displayed on my computer screen, each day I look at it but I don’t take time to contemplate why I chose the picture and what it means to me.

Today I stopped, looked at the wooden walkway over the water, the beauty of the sunset and towering mountains in the background and immediately thought, “Don’t walk off the end!” and “No, if I walk off the end Jesus will catch me or I’ll walk on water.”

In this context the picture means ‘trust’ and is a call to trust when logic would tell me I  cannot walk on water, nor will Jesus catch me. (Matt. 14:22-33) Therein lies faith and hope, faith that the Lord is true to His word and hope that what we cannot see is more real than what we perceive with our eyes. These are deep concepts from a simple glance and stare at a picture.

I don’t want to be assumptive of the Lord in the fact that I would walk on water, simply if the Lord asked me to come to him and I needed to walk on water to obey His command – then of course He would provide a way. In this trust, obedience, hope and faith mingle together, along with the relationship build on hearing and recognizing His voice. (John 10:25-30)

The life of faith is not easy, nor is it too difficult, God the master teacher knows exactly what we are able to accomplish with His help and strength. He is our creator, provider and the lifter of our heads. (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 34; Psalm 139) He is God, my lack of faith reveals my lack of trust in a perfect provider God. Even in the position of needing to trust- He meets us to help us when we call out to him (Psalm 18:6)  in humble recognition that we are not sufficient- but in Him we are completely sufficient when we ask and are willing to receive His help. (Romans 16:2)

I gaze into the picture and continue to contemplate: Is it only in the sunset of our days that we realize how intimately caring our God is towards us? How the sacrifice of the birth and the suffering of the cross are both redemptive acts for the hearts and souls of humankind? (John 3:16) That our God, the only God, is very much aware of our desperate need of Him. That it is that deep cries to deep (Psalm 42:7) when our soul is vexed within us and peace is not to be found, only do we locate complete peace when we find our home and being in a supreme God, the maker of the Universe? (Isaiah 26:3)

What do I see in the pictured wooden walkway, wooden end with a lake of water and with an end of day sunset? I see hope and beauty. I see faith, trust, obedience, submission and strength. Most of all I see a place of the redemptive work of God, a place and scene that seems at its finish but truly representing a beginning. A place to sit in peace, rest in His handiwork and know that I am fully loved because I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

-Stacey Britton
December 28, 2015 Journal Entry