If you’re familiar with the stories of Christendom, you probably know the one about St. Peter walking on water. As a kid I heard the story many times and always with the same lesson: Peter was a failure because he grew afraid of the wind and waves.
I knew I’d be very uncomfortable about walking on a constantly heaving wet floor, let alone actual water. But that never came up. None of the pastors I heard recount the story every praised Peter for having the nerve to get out of the boat to start with. They just warbled on and on about how everybody needed to be less like Peter and have more faith.
Therein lies the reason for the dredging of my childhood and slapping a gasping memory on a page before you.
Peter continues to be degraded for failing to take more than a few steps across a churning sea but I’ve yet to hear somebody mock the dudes who stayed in the boat. Many of the good folks around would have you believe that life is all either hot or cold. Success or failure. Laudable bravery or deplorable cowardice.
Good for them.
Let’s take a break from that mindset and think about the times you’ve gotten out of a boat in your life. Don’t focus on how you didn’t make it more than a few steps away from the boat before you needed to be rescued. Don’t focus on your failure to walk across the ocean. Think instead of all the steps you DID take. Think about how you believed in something enough to do what others said you couldn’t.
You got out of the boat. That’s amazing. You can do it again, too. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Show kindness without an end game — Few are capable of such a thing. When presented with an opportunity to be kind, take it if you’ve got the resources. You’re out of the boat.
- Complete a cost-free step to achieving a dream — Too often we let money get in the way of progress. Pick a task or group of tasks you need to make a dream happen and complete them. You’re out of the boat.
- Take a worldwide problem and solve it for somebody in your neighborhood — Changing the world is an impossible task but you can make a difference on your doorstep. In changing the world of another, you’ve changed the world for us all. That’s definitely a getting-out-of-the-boat sort of approach.
What do you think? Should we continue celebrating failure like the gurus tell us to or should we focus on those first successful steps and figure out how to repeat them, learn from them, and add to them?
I’m glad for your thoughts.
I love this post. A lot of people get paralyzed and end up doing nothing for fear of ending up a failure. However – many of the things I did in my life brought me a lot of success – because no one else was brave enough to do the “unlikely”.
Very nice! Keep it up! You remind of of my inspiration.. Thank you
My son has Autism, and the hardest and most wonderful lesson I’m learning is to appreciate “approximations of success” – getting him to walk from the car to the front door on his own feet is a success, even if he’s screaming the entire way. He’s not flat on his back flailing in full-on tantrum like last time. I’d never get through a single day if I treated getting wet (like Peter) as failure. Approximations of success – we cherish each one.
I will start to make bio-char in my own garden, to get rid of the wood branches in an environmentally friendly way.
Peter had the courage that 11 other men did not. He didn’t just step out of the boat he jump at the opportunity to be with his mentor and Savior. Keeping your eye on the goal is the important part of the story. 11 men lost site of the goal while 1 did not. At least until he looked at the challenges around him.
Seth,
I too grew up hearing the same spin on the story of Peter and the boat. Now, I’ve also heard many pastors giving credit for Peter actually getting out of the boat!
At least he stepped out, and he was rewarded. He’s the only one, besides Jesus, who is ever credited with walking on water (if you dare to believe the Bible).
We can take that lesson for ourselves. It’s better to walk on water and fail than to fail even worse by staying in the boat.
Very nice tips. Often we let failure define us and that is folly..every step counts, up and down…thank u for a great post
Peter was a very simple man.
Simple people, would never consider failure, since they only do what they see that they can do. Just as simple.
And when you see a master, you always see what they do as something very simple and easy. Perhaps, life is like that.
I know by experience that when I master in something, I do it in a very simple way. And others might think that it is easy to achieve… As Peter might have thought.
When I first show the title of the post I really through you are going to teach us walk on water like the magician. anyway inspiring post.
You can’t walk on water if you don’t get out of the boat. But you have to keep your eyes on Jesus. If you look away and start to sink, Jesus will pull you back up. Jesus had to walk Peter back to the boat.
http://howtowalkonwater.blogspot.com/ explains and shows in video how street magicians create an illusion of walking on water