Today I read Matthew 14. The one thing I always take away from the story of Herod and John the Baptist is to be careful of what you say and what you promise. The scriptures have a few instances of something like this happening where someone swears with an oath to do something either for another person or for the Lord and they always end up regretting it as soon as it is made clear what they are asked. For example the military leader from the Old Testament, Jephthah, swears with an oath to sacrifice to the Lord the first thing that greets him upon his arrival home, and it ends up being his daughter.
This case is not so different. Herod on his birthday throws a party and his step-daughter dances for everyone and it says that Herod was pleased by her, which I can only assume meant he was aroused by her dancing. In his state, which most likely included intoxication, he promises her anything she desires and she asks for John the Baptist's head, literally, on a silver plate. Unfortunately, despite what else he was, Herod was a man of his word and had it done. I've never understood these men that make such broad promises or generalized statements to people. Perhaps it was a cultural thing, I just don't know. It has certainly served as a warning to me to be careful what I say or promise to another person.
When Jesus heard that John was killed, He departed into the mountains, presumably to pray and commune with the Father and try and deal with His grief. However, the multitudes followed after Him, and true to form, He did not send them away. Instead He bade His disciples feed the multitude of over 5000 men, women and children. Unfortunately all they had was 5 small loaves of bread made from barley and 2 fishes, not even enough for the Savior and His Apostles, let alone over 5000 people. But Jesus was not worried about it and had them all sit down and then He gave thanks for the bread, blessed it and brake it and asked His Apostles to distribute it among the people.
What faith it must have taken the disciples to trust Jesus and do this! It must have looked woefully inadequate to the Apostles as they walked away from Jesus holding their meager fare to give to the people. And yet, through some means unknown to us, the food was multiplied everyone ate their full and the leftovers were enough to fill 12 baskets full, although Matthew does not tell us this fact it is in another of the Gospels. Unfortunately, the miracle was wasted on most of the multitude which then began to follow Jesus, not because he was the Savior and had the Gospel, but because He could feed them and take away their hunger. Little did they know that He could take away so much more than their hunger if they would only allow Him the opportunity. I believe that some did, but vast majority missed the lesson entirely.
Once the multitude was sent home, the Lord sent His Apostles out into the sea so that He could be alone to commune with the Father. When He was done, He set out to join them, but they were still on the sea as it was quite tumultuous that night. The Savior did not have a boat to use to join then, so He did the next best thing and walked on the water out to them. When they saw Him they were afraid, and who wouldn't be? It's raining, possibly quite hard, and the boat is being rocked by the waves, and then they see a person out in the middle of it walking on the water coming towards them? It is hard to say what I would have thought at such a time.
Peter though, when he learned it was the Lord asked the Lord to command him to come out to Him and Jesus did so. Peter got out of the boat and started walking on the water and for a moment was fine. But we are told the storm was still ongoing and he grew afraid and probably thought a little too hard about what he was doing and just how impossible that was for a human to do. He then began to sink and cried out for the Lord to save him, which Jesus of course does. Now, most people chastise Peter in this story for his lack of faith and for taking his eyes off the Savior and losing his focus. I choose instead to think of the wonderful analogy it serves for our own lives.
We desire to go back to live with our Heavenly Father, so He asks us to come to Him and we start out on our journey. Things are going well until soon we lose sight of our goal, the spiritual tempest arises and we grow afraid and start to sink into the waters of despair and sin. We call out for help and Jesus reaches out and grasps us by the hand and pulls us back onto our feet, if we allow Him to. Sometimes unfortunately, when He extends His hand to us we scoff at it and sink even further into the sea because we prefer it. After all it's comfortable in there and that's where all our friends are. However, we are meant for better things and we need Jesus' help to get back onto our own two feet. Occasionally, we stumble and fall beneath the waves through inattentiveness, at other times we dive right in of our own accord. Whatever the challenge we face, He is ready and waiting with His hand outstretched ready to help us back up and out of that sea. All we have to do is grab hold of it and let Him do the rest.
That's one of the great thing about the scriptures, the stories it tells and usually so applicable to us and we can have read them a dozen times and know their meaning when all of the sudden one day we read it and see it another way too and wonder how me ever missed it. Thank Heavenly Father and His holy prophets for their sacrifice in making sure we have these Holy Scriptures to help us on our journey, a life jacket for us to wear as attempt to walk along these waves of adversity if you will. I shudder to think where we would be without them. Thankfully we don't need to worry about it, and hopefully we are taking the time to thank Heavenly Father for that fact. I know I should do it more often than I do. A shortcoming there is still thankfully time to fix. Hopefully you express your gratitude for the scriptures and the wonderful guide to life that they are. Until tomorrow.
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