Dare to be a Peter!

You often hear people use the cliche 'dare to be a Daniel'. The phrase encourages us to stand for faith against all opposition like Daniel of the Old Testament. Daniel stood strong and never once does it describe him as failing in what he did. Now though we would all like to be a Daniel, the truth is we most of us fail repeatedly in our faith. Daniel can be too high of a standard for us if we have already failed our Lord at some time.
 
A while back, I preached a sermon about Jesus walking on the water. In that famous story Peter says to Jesus, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." At that point Jesus tells him to come. All goes well till he sees the waves and takes his eyes off of Jesus and looks at the water and his situation. All of a sudden Peter starts to sink and cries out "Save me".
 
Peter takes a lot of abuse from us because of his failure here. We have a tendency of making jokes about how he had foot in mouth disease and such. I think our criticism of Peter at times may be a bit harsh. When we consider the little faith of Peter, we need to also consider the lack of any faith on the part of the other disciples.
 
Peter was the only one of the twelve who had the courage to step out of the boat. Peter was the only one of the disciples willing to trust the Lord that he himself could also walk on the water by the Lord's power. The others remained on the boat cowering in fear.
 
Was Peter afraid? You betcha! But he stepped out in faith anyway. Even though at that moment his faith failed him, he learned from it and later God was able to do great things through Peter! Every failure can be a stepping stone to walking stronger in your faith.
 
The next time God asks you to step out in faith and you're afraid, dare to be a Peter! Don't cower in the boat with the other disciples. Dare to be a Peter and step out of the boat. Even if you fail, God will pull you up out of the water. He won't let you sink. You will be better for it and you will be even more prepared the next time God calls on you.