{"id":353,"date":"2018-05-18T19:55:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T19:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shop.honestreflections.net\/?p=353"},"modified":"2019-12-10T08:43:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T13:43:56","slug":"losing-sight-of-the-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2018\/05\/18\/losing-sight-of-the-shore\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Sight of the Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.<\/span>\u00a0”\u00a0 Matthew 14:29<\/strong><\/em>
\nI watched a documentary yesterday titled, “Losing Sight of the Shore”.\u00a0 It started with this quote:
\n“You can never cross the ocean without first losing sight of the shore.”\u00a0 Christopher Columbus<\/em>
\nIt instantly captivated me.\u00a0 The movie tells the tale of six women from the UK, whom together row across the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 They started in California and ended in Australia.\u00a0 It was over 8,400 miles of rowing.\u00a0 It took over 9 months to complete. They broke three world records in the process,\u00a0 including being the first women to do it.\u00a0 They were known as the “Coxless Crew”.\u00a0 It is truly a fascinating journey, one worth the watch.
\nAs I have pondered this since it reminded me of Philip Yancey’s book “If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get out of the Boat”.\u00a0 It centers on the above passage from Matthew.\u00a0\u00a0Peter had to get out of the boat before he could walk on water.\u00a0 We have to lose sight of the shore to cross our oceans.\u00a0 We have to have faith.<\/span>
\nThe tagline from the movie is “Everyone has a Pacific to cross.”\u00a0 This got me thinking about what mine are.\u00a0 I started thinking about some of the challenges in my life.\u00a0 Steps of faith I needed to take which would eventually get me across the ocean.
\nRelationships are a constant challenge.\u00a0 My relationship with God is challenging.\u00a0 Trusting Him when I don’t understand why bad things happen is challenging.\u00a0 Believing His will is best can be challenging.\u00a0 Making Him a priority can be challenging.\u00a0 Loving Him completely can be challenging.\u00a0 It is a day by day journey in which I consciously choose to lose sight of the shore and follow Him into the deep water.\u00a0 One row at a time.
\nContinuing to put God first helps me row into the deep waters of human relationships.\u00a0 It helps me forgive people who have hurt me.\u00a0 It helps me ask for forgiveness when I am the offender.\u00a0 It helps me cross the ocean of broken relationships to restored relationships.\u00a0 It helps me take steps of faith which may lead to rejection here on earth, knowing I will never be rejected by Him.\u00a0 He helps me lose sight of the shore and cross the ocean.
\nThere are so many oceans people have to cross.\u00a0 Oceans of loss.\u00a0 Oceans of turmoil.\u00a0 There are oceans we’ve created ourselves and oceans created by others.\u00a0 My ocean of weight loss was created by me.\u00a0 When I lost my job it was created by someone else.\u00a0 In both cases, God is the one who helped me get to the other side of it.\u00a0 He is the one who helped me through the rough waters until I found the shore.
\n“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, \u201cLord, save me!\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/sup>Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.\u00a0\u201cYou of little faith,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0he said,\u00a0\u201cwhy did you doubt?\u201d\u00a0 Matthew 14:30-31<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nIt’s fascinating, Peter was doing great walking on water until He took his eyes off Jesus.\u00a0 The minute he saw the wind he began to sink.\u00a0 He lost his faith momentarily.\u00a0 The minute he cried out, Jesus was there.\u00a0 As soon as he had the Son back in his eyes, he could walk again.
\nIt’s important to remember, as we cross our oceans, what the source of strength is.\u00a0 We have to keep the Son in our eyes as we row our boats if we want to cross the Pacific.\u00a0 The beauty is, even if we do lose sight for a moment, Jesus is right there waiting.\u00a0 He will take our hand, lift us back up and help us keep going.
\nYou do have to lose sight of the shore to cross the ocean, but you can’t lose sight of Jesus.\u00a0 Where are you on your journey?\u00a0 Are you still on the shore?\u00a0 Are you in the middle of the ocean?\u00a0 Have you taken your eyes off Jesus?
\nWhere ever you are, take heart, He is there.\u00a0 He is there to help you take the first step, the 99th step or the step to get you going again.\u00a0 All you have to do is ask.\u00a0 Before you know it, you too will have crossed an ocean!
\n 
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\u201cCome,\u201d\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u00a0Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.\u00a0”\u00a0 Matthew 14:29 I watched a documentary yesterday titled, “Losing Sight of the Shore”.\u00a0 It started with this quote: “You can never cross the ocean without first losing sight of the shore.”\u00a0 Christopher Columbus It instantly captivated me.\u00a0 The… Continue reading Losing Sight of the Shore<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1549,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}