Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
I read somewhere recently that men are more likely to find God in the moment while women are more likely to go back and look at past crises and joys and identify His work. I don’t know if that’s true for you, but it certainly is for me. I can point to so many points in the past—my move to northern Virginia, a stormy pastoral counseling 
session, a chance conversation about conferences—that now, I can so clearly see His hand. But today’s disputes with friends, Metro failures, and struggles to control my Starbucks intake—not so much. Oh, I know He’s there. Intellectually, I get that He always is. But sometimes, it seems to take being on the other side of those challenges to see His presence.
Like Peter in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, we find it easy to start on the journey toward the Lord. But when the wind blows—and sometimes, it doesn’t have to be all that strong—we get flummoxed. Peter at least had the faith to cry out for help, even though he lacked the faith to believe the Lord would prevent him from sinking. May we all move toward that faith in the present, not just celebrating when we see where the Lord worked in our lives in the past.
