What to do when you know you can’t do it!

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I left Ray’s Sunday evening sermon encouraged and hopeful. I confess to looking at my task list and wondering, “How in the world . . . ?!” As in, “How can I be a wife and a Little and a daughter and a friend and update America the Beautiful; co-write a new grades 1-4 states, capitals, and American geography curriculum; and assist Ray with high school geography before the spring of 2020?”

Here is my one-sentence summary of Ray’s lesson:

Put that other leg over the boat, Peter, and walk on water!

Could Peter walk on water? Nope. Could Jesus hold Peter up and make him able to walk on water? Yep.

Ray contrasted people who did trust and people who didn’t. When the disciples got scared during a storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus said:

“Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?”
Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea,
and it became perfectly calm.
Matthew 8:26

When Peter started sinking that day he walked on water:

Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him,
and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Matthew 14:31

In the very next chapter after Jesus fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish (which was two chapters after He fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish), the disciples got into a boat and crossed to the other side of the sea. They had forgotten to bring any bread with them and they discussed that fact with one another:

But Jesus, aware of this, said,
“You men of little faith,
why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread?
Matthew 16:8

Little faith. Little faith. Little faith. All three times, Jesus pointed out their little faith.

At other times, Jesus talked about people with great faith. After an interaction with a Roman centurion:

Now when Jesus heard this,
He marveled and said to those who were following,
“Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith
with anyone in Israel.”
Matthew 8:10

Ouch. That must have hurt when the Jews heard Jesus say that a Roman centurion had greater faith than anyone in Israel. They must have felt the same way when they heard Jesus talking to another non-Jew, a Canaanite woman:

Then Jesus said to her,
“O woman, your faith is great;
it shall be done for you as you wish.”
Matthew 15:28

So, what should we do when we know we can’t do whatever it is that we know we can’t do? We need to trust the One who loves us and who can do whatever we need Him to do. We need to put the other leg out of the boat and trust the One who can make us able to do whatever it is He wants us to do. We become mamas, not of little faith, but of great faith.

I know homeschooling can be very hard. I know there are days you think you can’t go on one more day. I know that things happen that you think you simply cannot get through. I also know that God is waiting for us to put that other leg out of the boat and trust Him to do what we cannot do alone. He loves us so much and wants to help.

I am the vine, you are the branches;
he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit,
for apart from Me you can do nothing.
John 15:5

Here are a couple of opportunities for you.


Check out my video about worry:

And if you have questions about Our Star-Spangled Story, you’re invited to join us for a Facebook Live on Wednesday, June 26, at 10:00 a.m. Central Time:

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