In the gospel of today’s Mass (Matthew 14:22-33) we hear the familiar story of Jesus walking on water.
According to Matthew this occurred shortly after the miraculous feeding of the crowds, as the disciples were out in their fishing boat in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus beckons Peter to climb from the boat and walk towards him. Peter obeys. At first, with his eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, Peter begins to walk towards Jesus. But as the storm whips up, Peter’s attention is drawn from Jesus and towards the wind and waves. As Peter begins to sink and cries out to Jesus, Jesus reaches out to save him and draws Peter back into the boat.
This encounter between Jesus and Peter is so instructive for us – in two regards.
First, like Peter we can sometimes lose sight of Jesus. Sometimes we can allow the “storms” of our lives to eclipse our relationship with Jesus. The irony is that, it is just at those times that we ought to fix our gaze on Jesus most. But like Peter, sometimes our faith is weak, our gaze is distracted, and we perceive God’s presence to be missing.
But God is never missing. And this brings us to the second point –
During those difficult times in our lives, just as Peter did, we can still cry out “save me Lord” and Jesus will reach out to us. Even if we allow ourselves to become so distracted to push God to the periphery of our lives, Jesus always waits for us to return to him and to request his help.
Our God is always there for us. He is never missing. He just loves us too much for that to happen.