Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,121

will sink.

“In fact, notice please that when Jesus picked Peter up out of the water, He didn’t say, “Why didn’t you have enough willpower?’ or ‘What happened to your willpower?’ He didn’t even say, ‘You should’ve tried the 5-step program that’s popular right now.’ No. He said, ‘Oh, ye, of little faith, why did you doubt?’ Of course, that begs the question, faith in what? Faith in whom? Doubt what?

“Faith in Him. Faith in doing this His Way. He is where your power resides. He is where your peace and your stability in the midst of the storm reside. Not in the boat. Not even just out on the waves. In Him. He says, ‘In the world you will have turmoil and strife, but in Me you will have peace.’ The lesson is simple but oh, so difficult in practice. When you step out of the boat, you have to learn to keep your eyes stubbornly, relentlessly, completely and eternally on Him. His Way, God’s Way. It works every time it’s tried.

“Notice, for example, Joshua and the walls of Jericho. That wasn’t a 3-Step Plan Joshua had read in some great self-help book. Instead, Joshua fought this battle God’s way in that time, for that specific issue. Look at Moses at the Red Sea… Gideon facing the army...”

“Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego,” Taylor said under her breath, remembering the story of the three men joined by a fourth in the fire.

“Noah. Daniel. Peter. These are not exceptions. Too often, we miss the message because it’s shown, not told, over and over again. But true believers understand: God’s way, Jesus ‘the Way’ works. Our way, the world’s way doesn’t. Doing life God’s way makes way for eternity to begin now. Our way will sink first the boat and then us on the wind and the waves. God’s way creates miracles. Our way creates chaos and strife. But it’s our choice. God lovingly gives us a choice every single moment of our lives.

“Take a good long look at your own life and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that doing life your way, the world’s way, has brought you peace and hope and joy. Or has it brought you debt and despair and hopelessness, strife and striving for goals that never fulfill your deepest desires even if you get them? Yet God continues to relentlessly, lovingly give us the choice, His way or our way. The Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Get out of the boat and do it His way by keeping our eyes on Him or keep doing it our own way—inside or outside the boat. Your choice. The question is, ‘Which do you choose?’”

The cinema paper was giving Greg hives. The idea of doing all the dissimilarities had sounded great, but it hadn’t produced the necessary page count. He wished he had Taylor’s talent for stretching and polishing words. He’d never had that particular talent. Give him formulas or a list of dates to memorize and he was good. Deeper than that and he was toast.

To put off doing the paper, he read the assignment for English. He didn’t understand that either, so when it got to be an hour before church services, he finally admitted he was losing the battle and the war, and he gave up and left to do something he might actually not stink at.

When he got to the student center, he said a quick hello to Pastor Dave and Merel and told them he was going in the chapel to practice. The good thing was, he hadn’t told anyone else his plan, so he had the chapel and all of the instruments to himself. He hadn’t played by himself in forever, so instead of the keyboard, he chose a guitar and grabbed a stool. He didn’t have music or words for anything, so he simply let go of all the stuff he couldn’t do and let himself, blessedly, finally, do the one thing he could.

“Would you agree with me,” Taylor asked Yoli as she headed out of town and back for Tech in the late afternoon, “that the thing standing in most people’s way is what the world says?”

She’d been thinking about the pastor’s sermon all day. What if Moses had given in to the doubt and not faced Pharaoh? What if Noah had listened to the people who thought he was crazy and not built the ark? What if Peter had said, ‘You know what? I’m