{"id":1573,"date":"2020-08-05T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T10:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1573"},"modified":"2020-08-05T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T10:30:09","slug":"message-from-the-minister-letter-10-sunday-9-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1573","title":{"rendered":"Message from the Minister Letter 10 &#8211; Sunday 9 August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear\nall,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nhope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp;\nAs humans we tend to be sceptical about things which appear out of the\nordinary or things that don\u2019t quite make sense.&nbsp;\nThe phrase \u2018seeing is believing\u2019 reminds us that if something is\nimplausible we need to see it to believe it.&nbsp;\nOver time as technology has developed, humans are able to do things\nwhich once seemed impossible.&nbsp; Take for\nexample air travel, who would have thought it feasible to get a jumbo jet into\nthe air and fly it to the other side of the world?&nbsp; Since then, space travel has been developed\nwith trips to the moon, satellites put into orbit and now further more\nambitious projects are being explored.&nbsp; The\npassage this week follows on from the feeding of the five thousand as can be\nfound in Matthew 14: 22-33 and looks at an event which on the face of it seems\nimpossible.&nbsp; Jesus sends the disciples\noff in a boat whilst heading up a hillside alone. &nbsp;It is interesting to note that even the Son of\nGod needed time alone to pray and how much of a priority it was for Him.&nbsp; Is prayer on your to do list and how much of\na priority is it?&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next\nwe learn as Jesus is in quiet contemplation with God on the mountainside, the\nwind and the waves are increasing and the boat the disciples are in is a\nconsiderable distance from land.&nbsp; As dawn\narrives Jesus goes out to meet the disciples walking on the lake.&nbsp; Matthew mentions it as though walking on\nwater is the most normal thing in the world but of course it isn\u2019t, it\u2019s\nimplausible and difficult to understand.&nbsp;\nFortunately we have the benefit of hindsight and we know that Jesus was\nboth fully human and fully divine so nothing was impossible for Him.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet the disciples are shocked and think it\u2019s\na ghost walking toward them.&nbsp; Considering\nthey are probably tired and given the weather conditions around them, seeing a\nfigure emerge from the horizon it is understandable that they are\nsurprised.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nhears the cries and calls out to them to take courage and not be afraid.&nbsp; Peter with typical boldness challenges Jesus\nto call him out of the boat to join him on the water.&nbsp; Jesus accepts and Peter then climbs out of\nthe boat.&nbsp; At first all is well as Peter\nwalks on the water to Jesus but as he realises just what he is doing and takes\nhis attention off Jesus to focus on the wind he begins to sink.&nbsp; We need to keep our eyes fixed on Him even in\nthe storms of life.&nbsp; Jesus takes him by\nthe hand and asks why he doubts?&nbsp; Jesus\nclimbs into the boat with Peter and the wind drops.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The disciples worship Jesus as the Son of\nGod.&nbsp; &nbsp;Whilst this account shows that Jesus can not\nonly control the elements it also shows us that Peter after having seen the\nmiracle of the feeding of the five thousand and seeing Jesus walk on water and\nhaving done so himself still doubts.&nbsp;\nThat certainly makes me feel better!&nbsp;\nHaving doubts is normal especially in times of great change but we can\ndraw comfort in the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing is a match for Jesus\nand His purposes will prevail!&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nthe Lord Jesus Christ; weather changer and miracle maker, bless you, now and\nalways, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear all, I hope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp; As humans we tend to be sceptical about things which appear out of the ordinary or things that don\u2019t quite make sense.&nbsp; The phrase \u2018seeing is believing\u2019 reminds&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}