Impatient Peter || 07.23.2022

We’ve all heard the story about Doubting Thomas. I’m here to tell you about the latest nickname from the disciple CORE. Today, I want to talk about Impatient Peter.

Peter acted off of emotion. We see him losing his balance once he takes his focus off Jesus. We see him ready to pounce in the garden when Peter sliced part of the ear off one of the guards. To me, Peter feels like he was ready to do everything all at one time. I can relate to that, but it also feels that Peter worked on his clock instead of waiting on Jesus’ timing. He gets impatient, frustrated, and tired after a fruitless night of fishing. However, Jesus says to cast his net on the other side of the boat and catches an enormous amount. What’s up with that? His long, tiring, frustrating, and fruitless night turned into this fruitful bounty just because this man from Nazareth said to throw the net on the other side. I don’t know about you, but I would be impatient after working long hours to have someone tell me how to do my job, but Peter listened. He sees the blessing from waiting on Jesus’s timing and the fruit that responds.

We can all take a note from Impatient Peter. Many times, we react to emotion. We make decisions based on a knee-jerk reaction. We say something in the heat of the moment that we regret later on. We act on something that has consequences we don’t see until after it happens. Why? We want that control. We can’t wait for Jesus to act. We need to do the thing now because it’s essential, or we’ll forget to talk about it later, or because revenge is our top priority. Peter shows us that impatience, acting independently, gets us nowhere. In each instance, I mentioned Peter, and Jesus corrected him. Jesus shows Peter that we don’t need to act immediately but be patient in the Lord. The Lord knows when, how, and why to act and will show us God’s timing and not our own. I pray that we can lean on the patience of God and not on our patience because most of us have none to lean on. Amen.