Feeling like you're doing everything right and still going nowhere? You've got the skills, the experience, the morning routine that used to work - but lately it all feels like rowing through a storm at three in the morning.
In this refreshingly honest conversation, Matt Edmundson shares about hitting that wall - the kind where your expertise runs out and your usual strategies stop delivering. Through one of the most dramatic stories in the Gospels, we explore what happens when trying harder simply isn't the answer anymore, and why that might actually be the beginning of something better.
Matt doesn't sugarcoat his own experience: struggling to get out of bed, Bible reading that felt like reading Chinese, workouts at six out of ten intensity. But through Peter's impossible request to walk on water, we discover why exhausting our competence can open us to something beyond it.
Professional fishermen - men who've worked the water since boyhood - find themselves completely stuck. They've been rowing for nine hours through a storm. The crossing should have taken four.
"These guys were professional fishermen...but right at this point, their expertise, their knowledge, their insider trading - all that sort of stuff is not making one little bit of difference."
What we explore:
Key takeaway: Sometimes our competence has to run out before we're open to something beyond it.
At three in the morning, Jesus appears walking on water. The disciples think it's a ghost. And Peter, exhausted and bleeding, asks the most ridiculous question imaginable: Can I come out there with you?
"The boat was safety, absolutely. But the boat was also the limitation. The boat was keeping him alive, but the boat was also keeping him stuck."
What we discover:
Key takeaway: When you've exhausted your competence, you finally get to a place where you're open to something beyond it.
Jesus doesn't teleport them to the other side. He doesn't drag them with a rope. He climbs into the boat - the very boat that had become their prison.
"Sometimes God's grace when he gets in the mess with you doesn't mean you stop working. Peter had to pick up that oar again. But somehow it probably didn't feel like defeat anymore."
What this means:
Key takeaway: Grace doesn't make you stop rowing. But it means you're rowing towards something, not in circles.
Jan shared how vividly Matt's description landed - cold, wet, and miserable. But she admitted: "I don't think I would ever have been the person to say, 'Can I come out?' I'd have been watching. And that makes me feel sad." How many times have we watched others in awe, thinking: why didn't I do it?
Dan highlighted something...
