Today was a red letter day in the battle of wits I've been waging with a certain cat. There are several cats living in my garage. I know, if you don't feed them they'll go away and all that, but I'm a sucker.
This one female cat had already birthed a litter of kittens in the last cold week of March and due to her lax mothering skills and poor choice of nesting locations, the kittens froze to death. She dutifully brought in dead kitten after dead kitten to the garage until I had disposed of all five.
I've been trying to trick this cat into a crate or gather up the courage to snatch her up into a crate to take her to the vet. The other day I noticed that she was laying in one of the big crates, so I started giving her space until today I was able to shut the door on a very upset cat and carry the crate to the vet. No more kittens for that little cat. I hope she doesn't jump on my face Wednesday when I fetch her from the vet and loose her in the garage.
As with the cat, it takes a series of small victories and a few near misses, even some abject failures to make progress in our walk with The Lord. He understands this, even expects it and as long as we're looking forward and doing our part to walk with Him, God will not let us fall too hard. I like to look at Peter as an example of a regular guy who had to fall a few times before he became a powerful preacher and church builder.
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It's not surprising that Jesus' first followers were fishermen by trade. Jesus spent most of His ministry in a place where generations of people had made their living fishing and selling their catch in the nearby towns. The huge lake has it's own sometimes violent storm systems and serves the Galilee area along with the small villages that were called the "Ten Towns". Jesus knew the locals and saw the men who would be best suited to spread His message and turn the world upside-down. The first two He called were Simon and his brother Andrew. Jesus saw something in the rough and often loudmouthed Simon and took to calling him Peter, the "Rock".
At one moment, Peter might proclaim Jesus to be Messiah and the next day, Jesus rebukes him, "Get behind me, Satan!" Matthew 16:13-17; 21-23 When Jesus walked on the water toward the disciples on the boat in the middle of a squall it was ready-shoot-aim Peter who scrambled out of the boat to walk toward Jesus, all full of faith and in the next moments seeing the storm instead of looking to The Lord and sinking like, well, a rock. Jesus plucks him out of the water and helps him into the boat, "Such little trust! Why did you doubt? Matthew 14:28-31
It was Peter who cut the ear off of one of the men sent to arrest Jesus. Peter told Jesus that he was willing to die for Him, and Jesus just looked at Peter and told him of his upcoming denials. Peter and John were the first to reach the empty tomb. Peter picked up the burial clothes of his Lord. It was Peter who was forgiven and reconciled in a very special and personal way. "Feed My Sheep." Jesus told Peter that he would suffer a great deal for his faith and Peter simply turned around and asked what would happen to John.
At Pentecost, this man who had been a roller coaster of emotion and success followed quickly by failure stood and preached, empowered by the Holy Spirit to a crowd of foreigners who heard him in their own native tongues. They even remarked that Peter and the others were not educated men and yet they spoke with authority and recited scripture from memory. See Acts chapter 2.
Church tradition tells us that Peter was martyred, killed for the cause of Christ. He was to be crucified but opted to be hanged upside-down because he felt unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as The Lord. Peter went from being an unstable stick of dynamite to being the man Jesus saw from the beginning, a rock; a firm and stable founding member of the Body of Christ, speaking boldly but acting humbly in his service to Christ.
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