In Acts 3-4, we read of the story of Peter healing a lame man. As a result, he and John are arrested. When they are asked to give a defense, they risk their lives and speak boldly of Jesus and faith and a new life in Christ. Take a moment and read it. There is something powerful about being powerless -or imprisoned – and yet living forward in faith. When our kids were in school in Chapin, I enjoyed the stage of life when I would read a book their teacher had assigned. A favorite was The Life of Pi, which was also made into a movie. I recommend it.

Pi is the sole human survivor of a cargo ship that sinks in the Pacific Ocean while transporting his family and animals from his family’s zoo in India to Canada, where they hoped to start a new life

For 227 days, Pi drifts in a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger that Pi rescues as the ship sinks. It’s not a cute and cuddly story about a boy and his kitten. It’s an engaging, dangerous and fascinating story about faith and survival.

As Pi adjusts to his grief and his terrifying situation — terror outside the boat, terror inside the boat — he plots to rid himself of the tiger. But in time, Pi discovers that it’s the presence of the tiger that gives him the courage and determination he needs to survive his ordeal.

It’s quite a metaphor — that we may need to live with what we fear, what we do not understand, what challenges us — in order to survive a greater trial. Faith and fear are partners in the boat together.

No one knew this better than Peter. He is a man who, in a former life, would not let faith and fear co-exist. He had faith: “This shall never happen to you!” he says to Jesus who had said he was about to die (Matthew 16:22 NIV). But he is also noted for his fear, especially in his denial of Christ (Luke 22:57 NIV). Yet the two, faith and fear, could not hang together. He stood strong in faith in the absence of fear; he collapsed in fear in the absence of faith.

Faith doesn’t, and shouldn’t, take away fear; instead it offers proof positive that God is the unseen third presence in the boat — however small your boat may be upon your ocean.

It’s not uncommon to find ourselves asking God similar questions about the terrifying and imprisoning experiences in our lives from which we cannot escape — oceans of cancer, storms of grief, starvations of long unemployment, thirsting for love or the suffering of loneliness … or now, concern over COVID-19. Do we, can we, will we, still love God in the midst of dreadful calamity? Is there hope? Yes.