Luke 22: 31 - 33 (continued)

When I was about 8 years old our family took at trip to visit Grandma in Louisiana.  Dad had been raised on a farm near Winnfield Louisiana along with 8 other brothers and sisters.   There were fig trees on the farm when dad was young.  During a trip to the now abandoned farm, dad dug up some small suckers from the fig trees to bring to California.  I remember we hid them under the seat to make it past the agriculture inspection station coming back into California.  We planted them in the backyard where I grew up.  Every place that I have lived, I have planted a cutting from the trees dad planted at my childhood home.  If I lived in an apartment I had a tree in a planter.  When we moved to Kelseyville one of the first trees that I planted was my dad’s fig.  That tree has become a symbol of something that has lasted generations.  Not only has the tree endured but as I watch it grow I feel connected to something that lasts.  Something that will continue to endure long after I am gone.

Farming has been harder than I had ever imagined. At times it has tested my faith.  (I have to admit that at times I have blamed God for it being so hard.)   How does one’s faith stand up during a trial?  What does that type of faith look like?   Jesus told Peter that this “sifting” the disciples were about to endure was so severe that it was necessary for Jesus to pray for Peter’s faith to endure.  I have experienced events in my life that should have driven me away from my faith in God.  I have at times doubted the validity of my own walk with God.  I have questioned if I even had any faith at all.  And then like a trick birthday candle that relights after you blow it out, a spark from somewhere unknown snaps the flame, ever so small, back into existence.  I do not will it.  I do not seek it. It is as if it seeks me.  Yes I know that those who mock my faith, from a position of never having had any, would suggest that I am flawed in this respect.  Yet I am not interested in convincing them otherwise.  They may have their fantasy and I shall have mine… or perhaps more correct.  My so called fantasy shall have me.  

My observations about the disciples “sifting” experience and their faith:

1.  Jesus’ prayers are always answered.  Jesus said, “When you have returned” not “If you return”.   God preserves faith without human help. 
2. Wherever Peter was returning from, his faith had never left him on the journey.  Where was he and what was the journey like?  I think I can compare my own journey with Peter's.
3. He was humiliated. He had boasted that he would die for Jesus.  In the past I have said a lot of things about my faith in God.  If they could see me now.
4. He was grieving.  After he denied Jesus, Jesus looked him in the eye and Peter recognized what he had done.  He ran off and wept.  I have often felt sorrow about my own weak faith.
5. He was afraid.  When he saw Jesus was going to be executed he was afraid he would end up the same way since he was his follower.   I have sometimes wondered if my weak faith would bring disastrous results in my life.
6. He hid.  Peter lost his courage and ran away to protect himself.  I have run from God and other people to try a find a safe place to be.
7. He was disillusioned.   He had lost his focus.  One of the gospel writers mentioned that Peter went back to fishing.  He went back to doing what he had done before he met Jesus in the first place.  Out of my struggle for spiritual clarity I have been looking for a safe haven in things that have brought me peace in the past.
8.  He was wondering.  I am sure Peter wondered about his own faith in Jesus.  He had spent three years of his life a disciple and now that was over.  Enough said.
9. Peter’s faith, that endured, had no outward evidence of its existence.  He ran away.  Jesus predicted he would deny him three times.   I should not be so quick to judge who I think, has, and who I think, lacks, real faith.  I should be kinder to myself and the other Peters I meet in my life.
10.  Peter could not tell that his present faith condition would be gone in a matter of hours.  He said, “I am ready to die for you”.   I should be careful when I think my own faith feels invincible.
11. "Faith without works" (as is often quoted from the book of James) may be dead but works do not in of themselves demonstrate the faith that overcomes some trials.  That type of faith must be a gift from God and that faith outlives works.  I am thankful that when my own experience with God seems to lack any real dynamic, there is something still alive in the relationship.  I have not been abandoned.
12. If Jesus is praying for me I can be sure of the eventual outcome. My dad had a favorite hymn.  It is an old hymn written by David Whittle in 1883. The words of the chorus go like this, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day".