Hanging on for Dear Life

Have you ever charged through a door that God opened only to find out that you are in over your head? Sometimes it feels like I wait on God and his timing more than I actually get to move forward, but this time, I’m hanging on for dear life. I set up a page on Facebook called Train Up a Child, and I set up a blog WWW.TrainUpaChild--Encouragementformoms.blogspot.com. Within the first 24 hours, I had moms asking me about parenting strong-willed children and if there was going to be daily devotional for moms. UMMM? God? What have I stepped into? I’m already behind! Anyone else hate running behind? Within 48 hours there was over 80 likes on the FB page. The first blog written by a guest writer had 70 hits. The second blog written by a guest had over 145 hits. It was obvious that God was working. My prayer is that he will bless it and continue to grow it, so that moms can be encouraged in their first ministry – their families. Women were asking questions, and even better than that women who had experience were stepping up and encouraging those moms. Yes! Yes! Yes! Titus 2 women is what I’ve craved for in my life. But God, what now? He led me to Jesus walking on the water, so I asked my Bible study girlfriends if any were interested in studying this passage and discussing it on our FB page. I needed the accountability, and they agreed, so that’s where I’m headed –Matthew 14.


The thing about the story about Jesus walking on the water cannot be taken in and of itself. There’s a whole back story to Jesus walking on the water. The prior stories give context to what’s happening, so I’d highly recommend reading all of Matthew 14 and not just Jesus walking on the water part.

First of all, Herod the tetrarch is ruler over this province. It was Herod’s daddy that tried to have all the babies killed in Bethlehem when Jesus was young. So now you know what Herod is made of. Herod starts hearing reports about Jesus – I’d like to know what those reports are and how did he get his intel, but we aren’t given this little tidbit. When Herod hears about Jesus he immediately tries to reason about Jesus’ power saying it is actually John the Baptist that he beheaded previously. Herod was trying to explain the impossible, but faith needs no explanation. That’s why it’s called FAITH.

Do you know why John the Baptist was in jail in the first place, how he came to be in Herod’s possession? Herod had taken his brother’s wife, and John had the nerve to call a sin, a sin. He didn’t sugar-coat it like people do today. He didn’t call it an “affair” to make it more palatable. John said in verse 4, “It is not lawful for you to have her!” In Mark’s version in chapter 6 John just flat out calls it adultery. How many times have we sugar-coated a sin to make it more palatable? We are more worried about hurting someone’s feeling that being worried for their souls. While Herod wanted John dead, it was a tricky situation. The people thought of John as a prophet, and if Herod killed him, there would be most certainly some type of riot or defiance. But in the end, Herod got his desire. He gave the excuse that he had given an oath. He had given an oath to Herodias’ daughter that he would give her whatever she wanted since she did such a wonderful dance for his birthday guests. Herodias was the woman with whom he was committing adultery. He blamed the oath and his guests to be able to put John to death. He was a weak, weak, little man.

Let’s face it, if you cover a piece of dog poop in chocolate, it’s still poop. The same goes for sin. You can sugar-coat it all you like but it’s still that nasty thing called sin.