In the fall of 2017, I remember preaching about Peter walking to Jesus on the water (Matt. 14:22-33). When I was a kid, my favorite part of the story was Peter stepping out on the water. What a step of faith! And even though he became distracted and sank, still none of the other disciples were clamoring to get out of the boat.

But not anymore. Now another part of the story caught my attention. Jesus didn’t just call Peter to step out to Him. Peter asked for it. Peter stood in the boat and said, “Lord, if that’s you, command me to come to you on the water.”

Peter asked Jesus to call him out. He asked the Lord to command him to do something impossible. To do something he’d never seen done. To do something that he couldn’t possibly do on his own.

I meet thousands of Christians every year. Some are struggling. Some are in sin. Some are passionately following Christ. But I meet very few believers who are willing to say, “Lord, call me to do something that I’m not smart enough for. Call me to do something I’m not strong enough for. Call me to do something that I don’t have the resources for. Call me to do something that is so far beyond my abilities that when it is done, everybody will say, ‘That had to be God because it surely couldn’t have been him.'”

As I preached this, I began to realize that selling our house, getting rid of a lot of the “stuff” we had collected over the years and moving into an RV was very small compared to the great work that I feel that the Lord is desiring to do in our family. But it all begins with a step of faith.

How can we do this? How are going to make it? What is it going to be like? How will this affect our family? Our finances? So many questions but the answers really aren’t needed. Peter didn’t ask how this was possible. He didn’t ask for anything, except to be called. Faith doesn’t need all the answers to simply trust–You don’t need for God to give you all the information to simple step out.

Peter left the comfort and security of the boat and stepped onto the water. And he was fine as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. And, so will we. We’ll be fine as long as we keep our eyes on Christ.

 

 

 

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In the summer of 2016, several small and struggling churches from the Great Lakes area, southern Canada, and Miami called us.

“We’re small and struggling,” one said. “We need help with evangelism and outreach and we need training. We need help reaching our community. Can you come and stay with us for a week or two to help?”

My answer was yes. We have always travelled to churches on a “love offering” basis because we never wanted money to hinder ministry.

However, one by one, these churches told us that they couldn’t afford to have us come because where would we stay, what would we eat…In the end, it just wasn’t cost effective unless I was travelled alone (without my family) and slept in the church, which I have done in the past. But our ministry is a family ministry. God never called me to leave my family at home while I run around the world sharing the Gospel.

Mary Beth, my wife, and I were discussed this, while driving to a camp in Colorado, when she suddenly said, “Then let’s sell our house, buy an RV and spend a couple of years going to help the churches that want us to come.”

My response was super-spiritual: “Are you crazy! Seven people and two dogs in an RV for a couple of years sounds like a reality TV show.”

Two weeks later I came back to Mary Beth and agreed–That’s exactly what God wanted us to do.

Not long later, we sat down with our sons to tell them what was on our hearts. We didn’t know how they would respond. We had lived in the same house for almost 10 years and it was the only home that our younger sons really remembered. We had neighbors that they had  grown up with. Moving would mean selling and giving away a lot what we had, packing the rest in storage and taking only a little with us. We would all be letting go and stepping out in faith.

None of our sons responded negatively. They had questions, naturally, but in the end all of them agreed that the Lord was calling us to step out. In the weeks that followed, one of our sons came up to me and said, “I can’t wait to be in the RV because everywhere we go, we’ll simply have to open up the door and there will be lost people right outside.”

 

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