Lord, Let My Faith Be Bigger Than My Fear.

We're on vacation this week, and there's a pool. Yesterday, both my boys stood right on the edge of it, toes curled over the lip, wanting to jump to me and not quite able to make themselves do it.

Jesse, my younger one, managed to do it, but Theodore (who's four) was less confident. I was in the water with my arms out.

"I've got you," I kept saying. "Jump. I'll catch you."

I could see the fight happening on his face. He wanted to. He was also scared. The water looked deep and far, and I was asking him to leave the solid edge for it.

He didn't stop being afraid. He jumped anyway. And the second I caught him, the fear turned into the biggest grin you've ever seen, and he scrambled straight out to do it again.

It made me think of Peter. He is the one disciple who actually got out of the boat. In the middle of a storm, he saw Jesus walking on the water, asked to come to Him, and for a few steps he did. He walked on the water.

But then he noticed the wind. He looked at the waves instead of at Jesus, and he began to sink. "Lord, save me," he cried, and Jesus reached out and caught him.

Notice that Peter was afraid the whole time. The fear did not disappear when he stepped out of the boat. He sank the moment the waves grew bigger in his eyes than the One standing in front of him.

For a lot of us, the deep water is money.

A job that ends without warning. Months of searching with no offer in sight. A diagnosis that arrives with a second fear right behind it, the quiet math of what it is all going to cost. The bill you didn't see coming, the burden you couldn't plan for, a future that suddenly has a price tag you don't know how to pay.

And just like Peter, the moment we fix our eyes on the figure instead of on the One who provides, we start to go under.

But God is not waiting for you to stop being afraid before He will hold you. My son's heart was still pounding when he jumped. Peter was still scared out on the water.

Faith bigger than fear has never meant the fear is gone. It means you take the next step with it still in the room, eyes up, trusting the One who is asking you to come.

David knew this when he wrote Psalm 56. He writes, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You."

Not "when I stop being afraid." He chose trust in the middle of it. And this is the promise to stand on when the numbers are loud: "My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

So when money is the deep water in front of you, keep your eyes on him. The edge feels safer, but He is the one in the water with His arms out, ready to catch you.