For thought and meditation

[rl69]

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith… JUDE 20
There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God’s nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman— an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he “followed Him at a distance” on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises— human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God— but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people— and this is not learned in five minutes.

[WRideout]

I have long thought that it is harder to live for your faith than to die for it.
Wayne

[USMC87]

Amen for a great lesson!

[Wayne Smith]

Being ADHD myself I fully understand Peter. I define ADHD as 'ongoing, continuous, lifelong failure. Every ADD'er desperately needs reminders, but each reminder reminds me of my most immediate failure'. Peter's resilience in the face of his failures is also part of being ADHD, we get used to failure.

This context helps us understand the man Peter, but we even see the Holy Spirit changing this into a calmer, more mature man as he ages. When contronted by Paul he almost immediately admits his error and adjusts.