Getting Out of the Boat

Hey there,

Picture a bright summer afternoon at the community pool. The shallow end is noisy with laughter and splashing, but over at the deep end it’s quieter. A little boy—maybe seven or eight—stands at the edge. His toes are curled tightly over the rough concrete. Water beads on his arms from the last time he jumped into the safer part.

His dad is already in the water, treading easily a few feet out, arms open wide. “I’ve got you,” he says, voice calm and steady. “Just step off. I’m right here.”

The boy isn’t terrified of the water. He’s been swimming all afternoon. He knows how to kick and paddle. But something about the deeper blue beneath him makes his stomach flutter. He rocks forward onto the balls of his feet, then pulls back. Forward again. The concrete is warm and solid. The water looks… different from up here. He can see his own wavering reflection and, farther down, the pale shape of his dad’s feet moving slowly beneath the surface.

One more breath. One more rock forward.

Most of us know that feeling, don’t we?

That little flutter when the solid ground ends and the next step asks for trust.

It’s the same feeling that must have hung in the air one day on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus and His disciples had just crossed the water in a boat. The storm was behind them. The familiar Jewish side of the lake was behind them too. Now the boat scraped against the shore in a region called the Decapolis—Gentile country, unclean by every religious measure they knew. Tombs dotted the hillside. A man who lived among them, wild and chained, was about to come running.

And the text tells us something almost easy to miss:
“They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.” (Mark 5:1-2)

Not “when they all climbed out.”
Just Jesus.

He stepped into a place most people avoided. He stepped toward a man everyone else had given up on. And because He was willing to get out of the boat, a life was restored. The man who once lived among the tombs ended up clothed, in his right mind, and sent home to tell the whole Decapolis what the Lord had done for him (Mark 5:15-20).

This wasn’t the first time a boat had to be left behind.

Early in the story, Jesus walked along the same shoreline and called ordinary fishermen—Peter, Andrew, James, and John. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:19-20). Safety, income, routine… all left on the sand because Jesus said, “Come.” And then there was Peter again—on that same sea, early before dawn, with the boat being buffeted by the waves. Jesus came walking on the water. Peter asked if he could come too. Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him (Matthew 14:24-31).

I keep thinking about this image that John shared in the sermon this past week: Peter just below that surface, arms stretched upward, eyes open in the murky water… and right above him, the soles of Jesus’ feet, standing firm on the waves.

Even when Peter’s faith ran out, Jesus was still right there—solid, steady, within reach. A hand came down. Peter was lifted. They went back into the boat, and the wind died down.

I think we all have boats.

Maybe yours is the comfort of the familiar. Maybe it’s the safety of staying quiet when God is nudging you to speak. Maybe it’s the solid “concrete” of what you can control. The boat feels warm. The boat feels safe. And sometimes the next step Jesus is inviting us into looks deeper and less certain than we’d like.

But He still steps out first.
He still stands steady when we start to sink.
And He still says, “Come.”

So what does getting out of the boat look like for you this week?

It might be a conversation you’ve been avoiding. A place of need you’ve walked past. A step of obedience that feels a little too far from the edge.

We have to be willing to step out of the boat.
Take that first step…

You don’t have to have perfect faith.
You just have to be willing to rock forward one more time.

He’s already there on the water.
Arms open.
Feet planted.
Waiting…

~ Charlie