Fishin’ me out, again.

I found this image at Unashamed of Jesus who obviously found it somewhere else:

I absolutely LOVE this picture!  It illustrates the story of Peter walking on the water with Jesus; however, seeing the waves and the ridiculous reality of the situation, the big guy became awash with fear and doubt, and sunk like a stone.  But crying out for Jesus to help him, check out the expression on Jesus’ face!  He’s smiling!  Even with “oh, ye of little faith” on His lips, I can imagine that He was, indeed, still smiling!  I mean, c’mon, did anybody else get out of the boat besides Peter?!

Like my blogging buddy points out, the blustery hard-headed fisherman at least remembered to shout out to Jesus for help when he realized he was going under.

Which is unfortunately more than I can say for myself at times.    In fact, there has been more than one occasion when I didn’t even know I was sinking and it took others to let me know that I was in waters up to my knees and elbows!  

What I like about this picture and the attitude that is shown by Jesus is that the anger of God toward my ineptitude has been nailed to the cross with the Son of God as my scapegoat.  Cries of “UNFAIR!” fade away as I see the look of compassion and resolute lovingkindess that peers at me from above my water level.   It makes me think of how exciting it was to see our first grandchild start to walk, falling into our arms as she went from person to person in her very unsteady practice-gait.  We applauded, not scolded!

And it makes me think of this:

“The Lord your God is in your midst,
A Warrior who saves.
He will rejoice over you with joy;
He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins],
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.”

I’m intrigued that it mentions His warlike saving action in the same breath with His rejoicing over us (whom He is constantly warring to rescue…!)  When we turn to Him, crying out to Him with sincere repentance (as in, “okay,THAT was a bad idea”) and choose His way instead, based on this description–

–how can He help from smiling?

Zephaniah 3:17  Amplified Bible (AMP)Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.