Only the Almighty and All-Good God can help us in any difficult situation while our “modest” egoism can only drag us to the bottom.
It is impossible to follow Christ and distrust Him completely. This is, of course, an absurdity built precisely on human egoism.
Apostle Peter began to doubt and thus began to sink, but when he exclaimed: “Lord, save me!” – Christ stretched out His hand, and the storm calmed down. Apostle Peter wanted to get out of the boat in order to safe his life: don’t we do the same when we try to solve the problem on our own, and do not call for the help of God?
Maybe when a storm rises, we remember God, we know that He is somewhere here, but this is not enough. It is not enough just to remember about Him: complete trust to God is the only path to Him. It is the trust that we lack.
We cry out to God for help, but we do not accept the option that He offers, we uncompromisingly insist on what we think is right. We are looking for protection from misfortunes in God, but we do not plan at all to remain under His omophorion, follow His rules and advice, we are looking for some other “quiet”, “safe” spots and landmarks. We want to change our life and ask God for this, but we do not want to change ourselves.
It seems that we strive to meet Him, but we do not recognize Him and just pass by.
Our whole life consists of these failed meetings. Our egoism is guilty of this, it doesn’t give an opportunity to trust God, to rely on Him, but proposes to rely only on our own strength.
Our faith begins where selfish thoughts about ourselves end.
And if we start looking around at the waves raging around and thinking about the threat of death, then we will give in to our fear, and, like Apostle Peter, we will start to sink.
But if we cry, even at the last moment, realizing that death is inevitable, as Apostle Peter did: “Lord! I’m drowning! I’m dying! ”- God will surely stretch His hand to us and help.
Christ violates the laws of nature for the salvation of drowning apostles: He walks on water, showing His power over the elements. And this means that Christ does everything to save us. But there is one “but.”
God can save only that person who is aware that he is perishing. God will never save us against our will.
God wants to save us. But until we ask Him for this, it won’t work.
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
