Peter gets unfairly criticized. He was the disciple who denied Christ three times, but he was the only one who got close enough to Jesus to get caught. He was the disciple who impulsively cut off Malchus’s ear when the lynch mob came to arrest Jesus, but he was the only one who came to Jesus’s defense. He was the disciple who sank in the Sea of Galilee, but he was the only disciple who walked on water. It’s so easy to criticize people from the comfortable confines of the boat. Basically, there are two kinds of people: creators and criticizers – those who get out of the boat and walk on water and those who sit in the boat and criticize the water walkers. When everything is said and done, our greatest regrets will be the God-ordained risks we didn’t take. German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Hell begins the day that God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.” Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it.” What do you believe God is leading you to do? What is the persistent prompting of the Holy Spirit urging you to do? Do it. Failing to take a faith-based risk is like permanently misplacing a piece from the jigsaw puzzle of your life. It leaves a disappointing hole. When we reach the end of our lives, our biggest regrets will be those missing pieces. So today, go ahead and take a faith-based risk.

The Word for You Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from Celebration Enterprises, Inc. Copyright © 2024