Scripture: Matthew 4:18-20, Matthew 14:28-31, Luke 22:31-34, John 21:15-19
Read the scriptures by clicking each above.
Sometimes my heart acts before my mind shows up.
When we were planning for Operation Santa Shop in Old Fort, I was convinced it could (and would) happen.
Families dealing with extreme struggles prior to a hurricane, then forced to enter into the “Season of Joy” having experienced a natural disaster.
We were going to help. Intentionally, relationally, help.
I’d gathered the data. Approximately 300 students.
As the planning team gathered for our meeting, I declared.
“I’d like us to provide around $100 of toys for each child.”
One of the things I deeply appreciate about West leadership is that folks respect me. I’ve served in different appointments where folks would walk into a meeting with their minds made up – whatever the pastor suggested, they’d do the exact opposite. West is not that case. Folks push back with me when needed! (But always do it with grace). Yet, there is always an air of respect in the room.
When I shared we should aim for $100 a child, the team leaders fell silent.
I couldn’t figure out what the issue was.
After a few awkward moments a leader spoke up.
“Andrea, I know we want to help, but we can’t do that. I think that is simply too much to ask West folks to do.”
(In my mind, each of us most likely spend at LEAST $100 on our own children, so I didn’t think that was that big of a stretch.)
I respectfully disagreed, and said I was certain that we could come up with $3000, and that was IF folks bought nothing, which we knew that you would.
She laughed a little . . . “Andrea, it isn’t $3,000. It’s more like $30,000.”
“$30,000? How is it . . .”
And then my brain realized the numbers of zeros that needed to be added to the amount.
$300 x $100 is NOT $3,000. (You’ve figured that out already!)
Sometimes my heart leaps long before my mind catches up!
Simon Peter’s calloused hands were made for nets, not philosophy. Before he ever grasped theology, he understood the language of wind and water, of hauling and mending. A fisherman who lived by instinct—quick to speak, quick to move, quick to believe, and just as quick to stumble. If Peter had inscribed his life philosophy on papyrus, it might have read: “Act first, understand later.”
And yet, in those impulsive eyes, Jesus saw something worth calling.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
It wasn’t an invitation wrapped in explanation. It wasn’t a carefully negotiated contract. And Peter—whose heart always arrived before his mind could catch up—dropped his nets and followed, leaving ripples across Galilee that his rational self would spend years trying to comprehend.
The Sacred Dance of Boldness and Brokenness
There is something profoundly human in Peter’s journey. His spiritual life unfolds not as a steady climb toward perfection, but as a series of ecstatic leaps followed by devastating falls. Like the tide itself, he surges forward only to retreat again.
Watch him in the storm—the only disciple audacious enough to request, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” And for a transcendent moment, the impossible becomes possible. Until his consciousness shifts from the face of Christ to the fury of waves, and the miracle dissolves beneath him.
“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus asks as he pulls him from the depths.
This rhythm repeats throughout Peter’s discipleship. At Caesarea Philippi, divine revelation flows through him: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Yet moments later, that same mouth becomes a channel for resistance when Jesus speaks of suffering: “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” From rock to stumbling block in the span of a conversation.
And then the courtyard—that cold night when the man who had sworn to die with Jesus could not even claim to know him. Three times the question. Three times the denial. Then the rooster’s cry, piercing the night like a prophet’s rebuke, and Peter’s world collapses under the weight of his own failed courage.
What makes Peter’s story sacred is not his perfection but his persistence. After each failure, he does not abandon the journey. He weeps, he retreats, but he never fully disappears from the narrative. His brokenness becomes as much a part of his calling as his boldness.
Peter’s journey from impulsive fisherman to steadfast apostle suggests that God’s power works not despite our brokenness but through it. His letters, written years later, reveal a man deeply acquainted with grace: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). These are not the words of someone who has never known anxiety, but of one who has learned where to bring it.
When Jesus predicted Peter would deny him, he added this promise: “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Not if, but when. The failure was foreseen, but so was the restoration. And that restoration would become a source of strength for others.
The lead team for Operation Santa Shop did a similar thing. Met me where I was, crappy math included, and helped us lead forward with the mission.
(Which, as I’ve typed this – I realized . . . because of several others joining in with our efforts, the children received well over $100 each for Christmas. Isn’t the work of the Divine just amazing!??!!)
Prayer
Jesus, I stand before you with Peter’s heart beating in my chest—a heart that leaps toward you in one moment and away in fear the next. Meet me not in my idealized self but in my actual condition. When I sink beneath the waves of my own doubt and fear, reach for me. When I return to old identities after failure, call to me from the shore. And when my shame tells me I am finished, ask me again the question that invites me back into purpose: “Do you love me?” Transform my failures into channels of your grace for others. Amen.
Daily Practice
Identify a failure in your life that still carries shame—a moment when, like Peter, your courage collapsed or your faith faltered. Write it down, then beside it, write: “This is where grace finds me.” Spend time in contemplation, imagining Jesus asking not about your performance but about your love. What new purpose might be emerging from this very place of brokenness?