How to Walk on Water: A Christian's Survival Guide for Going Through Trials

By Renee Milton

Are you struggling with faith because your problems feel like they will never end? Are you having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? Do you need help with spiritual growth? How to Walk on Water gets to the root of why so many Christians miss the life lessons that God is trying to teach. It offers thoughts and tips to help Christians get spiritual gold out of their trials. Through the lens of her own life and spiritual growth, the author uses her personal story and counseling examples to show how God can take you from the prison of trials to the palaces of victory. We often feel weak and struggle to survive while waiting on God to change our circumstances. We face depression and loss of hope during turbulent times. How to Walk on Water is a reminder that God never forgets us and that soaring above our tribulations doesnt always mean happy feelings. Soaring means having strong enough wings to hold steady against the wind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490878522

Renee Milton

Renee Milton holds an MA in theological studies and is an ordained minister, speaker, and writer with over twenty years of experience in spiritual counseling. She and her husband, Gino, have frequently enjoyed sharing the highs and lows of their life experiences to help others with personal struggles. Renee led an extensive ministry with over 200 women at her local congregation for ten years using discussion groups and seminars to meet the needs of Christian women. From 1996 to 2010, Renee was a frequent speaker on the “Gospeltime” Radio Broadcast (WYLL 1160 AM), which is heard over a four-state area. Renee currently serves as an associate minister at the Church of God in Joliet, Illinois and recently received an honorary doctorate for her ministry. She and her husband have been married for twenty-six years and have three children.

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Copyright © 2015 Renee Milton.

The author can be reached at her blog www.howtowalkon.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All Scriptures are quoted from the Authorized King James Version.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-7851-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7852-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015906754

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/26/2015

Contents

Introduction: Walking on Water

Chapter 1: Family Background

The Journey of Jacob

Chapter 2: Hurts Beneath the Surface

Understanding Our Hurts

Chapter 3: Miracles—Our Testimonies

The Offering Plate

The Bus Ride

The Package Just in Time

$4,000 in a Day is not too hard for God

The Grace to Give

The Miracle Jobs—How Did You Do That?

We felt like the Jeffersons

Chapter 4: This Too Shall Pass

Chapter 5: How To Go Through A Trial—The Formula

The Formula of Psalm 37

Psalm 37:1-2: Fret Not Thyself

Psalms 37:3 Trust in the Lord, and Do Good

Psalms 37:4 delight thyself in the Lord

Psalm 37:5 Commit Thy Way

Psalm 37:6-7 and finally, Rest in the Lord

Chapter 6: Prayer

Chapter 7: Know Thyself

Chapter 8: Don’t Look for Predictability

Learning to Make Adjustments

Adjusting to Poverty

Chapter 9: Make The Best of It!

Chapter 10: Struggling with Failure

Chapter 11: Growing in Troubled Waters

Little Foxes

A Change of Plans

The Do’s and "Don’ts of a Trial

Who Can Separate You?

Chapter 12: Peeling Away the Mask

Peeling Away the Mask

How Do You See Jesus?

We Learn Through Suffering

Forgiveness and the Blame Game

How is Your Attitude?

PART 2: WHAT IS A TRIAL?

Chapter 13: What is a Trial?

Let’s See How Well You Can Float

Definition Number One: trials test our quality, value, or usefulness

Putting Money in the Spiritual Bank

Chapter 14: How Does God Cleanse Our Ways!

Definition Number Two: trials are a source of vexation or annoyance

Agitation

Cleansing Through Others

My Wimpiness

How Humiliating

My Talking Annoyance

A Brief Word About Adjustments

Chapter 15: A Test of Stamina

PART 3: ENDURANCE

Chapter 16: How to Avoid Fainting

Overcoming Oppression

Overcoming Depression

Overcoming Regression

Chapter 17: Dying to Self

Death is Painful

A Slow Death

Job’s Period of Adjustment

Daily Death

Chapter 18: Making Sure You Are Dead

Self Image

Chapter 19: How Do I Change?

Allow Him to Increase

Create Anchors

Paying Attention

Chapter 20: Weights and Waiting

Carrying Burdens

Worry

Waiting

Chapter 21: The Multitude of Counsel

Chapter 22: Accusations in Trials

Chapter 23: Humanity: The Tie That Binds

The Humanity of Jesus

Human Emotions

Our Backgrounds

Grieving

Frustration

Be Careful What You Ask For

Chapter 24: Facing Reality

Facing Reality is a Process

Chapter 25: Be Encouraged

Dedication

To my loving husband of 26 years whose unbelievable love and support have kept me safe and sane, and to each of my children who I love immensely, and my dear sister who’s always a phone call away.

Introduction

Walking on Water

Many times I have thought about the Bible story of Peter and his sheer madness to try to walk on water. Being a fisherman, he was quite familiar with the dangers of drowning, the perils of the sea, and the undercurrents that lay beneath the waves. None of these seemed to faze his senses, however. The scriptures say the winds were strong and blew against the small crew of disciples, and the waves were rolling and tossed. Yet Peter, always the first to test any boundaries, was willing to step onto the waters at one word, Come. For that brief moment, he seemed captivated by WHO was calling him and put his leg over the side of that boat to attempt the impossible. For a short time he did walk on that water. He felt safe and secure in a situation that was unsafe and life-threatening to the natural eye. But then he realized where he was and what he was doing and allowed fear to overtake him.

This book is about my own personal walks on water. It is about God teaching me how to live safely depending on God, in the midst of the storms and the waves, as the LORD was trying to teach Peter to do. It contains lessons I have learned through personal experience and growth. In life, every living thing must grow, and all things must expand and develop. This book is for those who want a deeper spiritual walk with God and those who want to discover more fully who they are in Him; all others need not apply. Walking on Water is about how to come to grips with the seemingly impossible problems and defy the commonness of our mortal existence through the supernatural love and power of Christ.

How do we walk on water? How do we create answers for problems that seem to have no solutions? Solutions come from what we choose to do and the attitudes we chose to have. Answers to our problems come from communion with God, not through our own intellect and reason. I know this goes against the advice of most self-help books because they tell you that all the answers you need are inside yourself. But I’d be lying if I were to tell you that I figured my way out of all my problems. Sometimes I had to wait and see how things turned out. Other times, I had to have faith that God would bring the solutions in the end. In short, the answers came through the hard labor of prayer and waiting on God.

In our modern age, we look for quick explanations and rapid resolutions. We tend to forget that our lives are a journey and quick answers are only for storybooks and fiction writers, not for real life. If we continually look for the climax to our story or ways to escape the circumstances altogether, we fail to learn the lessons God wants us to learn.

This book is meant to inspire us as Christians to take time to learn those lessons. When a child of God stops struggling to run his or her own life, and learns to truly walk with Christ wherever He leads, he or she can find out, just as Peter did, that for that brief moment the key to staying afloat is keeping our focus on Christ.

For those of us in the millennium-era church, this means understanding how to draw closer to God with seemingly less time for prayer, more obstructions to meditation, and a truckload of distractions. The latest cell phones and the ever-evolving technologies and entertainments are part of our current life. The fast-paced rhythm of the electronic age seeps into our spiritual walk, and we begin to look for shortcuts to a closer walk with God.

I hate to disappoint you, but this closer walk with God will cost you. It will not be convenient, quick, or easy. Rather it will take prayer, meditation, fasting, and seeking. Unfortunately, these are works that many modern-day Christians have abandoned as obsolete and akin to the methods of the Dark Ages.

While my children were growing, I took time to observe them during a series of financial setbacks in the 1990s. What I saw was something common for most children and something all Christians should adopt in their thinking. Children can be extremely resilient and even oblivious to their circumstances, and they can be extremely trusting. There is a certain level of trust children have within the circle of their little existence, which adds to their sweetness. As long as children have food and a place to sleep, and they are among people who love them, they’re all right. Even in subpar conditions, children respond to love and care. No matter how far behind we were in our mortgage or which utility was about to be unceremoniously turned off, my children always saw the bright side and never let the trials of their parents stop them from doing what they do best—play. They thought having no lights was exciting. Even though I didn’t share in that excitement, their attitude was always, Oh well, guess we’ll play hide and seek.

One summer afternoon, I received two notices: the gas was going to get turned off and the bank was going to foreclose on our home. I did what most responsible adults would do—I worried. How can I fix this? I pondered. Who can I call to help me? It’s amazing how easily we can tell others no to worry until we are the ones who have to pack our bags and sit on the curb. Panic started to trickle in. My daughter, who was about seven years old, was concentrating on a double-dutch game. I had promised to show her how to turn while she was jumping rope. She came in from playing outside and said, Come on, Mom; I thought you were going to show me.

My first reaction was Not now. But then I realized that life goes on and there was nothing I was going to do in the ten to fifteen minutes it would take to show her that would mean a hill of beans in the outcome of the situation. In fact I probably would have just sat and worried some more. So she and I went outside, played double Dutch, and had a great time. Both of us got really involved in the game, and I was able to relieve the emotional stress of the looming crisis. We all have to let go when we need to. My husband always says, When there’s nothing you can do…there’s just nothing you can do. As adults, our lives can be filled with stressful circumstances, but I learned that day that having the heart of a child helps us relieve that stress.

Having the heart of a child, even in adult situations, is what the Bible encourages us to do. Matthew 18:3 says, …Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Children are more trusting than adults and adjust to their circumstances more easily. As we grow older, we learn that everything may not turn out the way we’d like. Our problems seem larger and the consequences greater. What was once a natural reaction—adjusting—has now become a chore. So as adults, we lose our sense of safety and have to relearn how to find the silver lining in the clouds, smile when things are going badly, and trust that we will survive whatever happens to us. Seem impossible? Seem unrealistic?

As I go through life, I realize God enables us to accomplish the same impossible feats over and over again when we overcome our fears and stretch out on faith. I hope the stories I share with you will encourage you to trust God with your life. And even though you will make mistakes because that is part of the journey of life, I hope the lessons I’ve learned will teach you not to make the same mistakes that took me so long to realize I had made.

Christ has proven to be all I have ever needed, even in the most difficult times of my life. He has made my dark moments shine. He has given me peace when I should have had none. He has given me hope when all hope seemed gone. Even though it seems like a cliché, Christ truly is all we need.

Chapter 1

Family Background

My parents moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois, in the early 1950s, so my sister and I grew up in a black, middle-class Chicago neighborhood during the ‘60s and ‘70s. By the time we were born, my parents were well into their careers. Even though they both had a college education, they suffered greatly from employment racism. My father drove a public bus and worked in the stockyards and my mother worked in a candy factory, even though she had studied to be a nurse and my father had studied to be a teacher. Eventually, however, my mother was hired into her profession, and my dad taught English in the public schools.

While I always had plenty to eat, clothes to wear, and money, I was troubled by loneliness, anger, and family dysfunction. My uncle was a diagnosed schizophrenic. My grandmother was a cold and often mean individual, and all this affected my father and his upbringing of me and my sister. I know dysfunction is a familiar buzzword to a lot of people, and most people can find some dysfunction in their families. Sometimes troubles brew underneath the surface, even in seemingly perfect families.

I felt as if I lived a plastic existence. I did not dare have a real problem because my parents had the oppressive disease of perfectionism. To them, image was everything, and all problems either had to be swept under the rug or kept hidden in the closet. We did benefit from perpetuating the image, though. There were ballet and modeling classes, music lessons, recitals, shows, ski trips, vacations to Europe and North Africa, trips to New York to see Broadway shows, big birthday parties, and anything else we could have bragged about. Our parents took us to the finest restaurants in the city, and bragged to their friends about where they had been.

While my parents seemed like the perfect couple, they were so determined to live a charmed existence that my father spent way too much money on just about everything. So they argued about money on a regular basis. Fact is, my parents lied about everything, including my name. For years, my father told me that my first name was Olivia and that my middle name was Renee, because my grandmother wanted to believe my parents named me after her and insisted that her name was not relegated to a middle name. My mother, however, hated her mother-in-law and wanted me named Renee Olivia. She did not want to call me Olivia, after the mean old witch, as she called her when I was growing up.

Everyone always called me by my middle name. My father always filled out my forms for school, and by high school I was sure my name was Olivia Renee and that’s what I told everyone. So I filled out my forms for college and my graduate degree as Olivia Renee because that’s the way my name appeared on my social security card. I never really had to see my birth certificate until my father died and it was then I discovered my real name. It is, in fact, Renee Olivia.

My parents were very ambitious, and my mother helped my father work his way to the top. In order to get an assistant principal’s position, he needed a master’s degree. I used to have a picture of my sister and me standing next to my dad in the driveway while he was wearing his cap and gown the day he graduated with his master’s. It was not until we were older that my mom told us the she actually did most of the work he needed to graduate. He was intelligent enough to do the work, but he was a procrastinator. She wanted him to get the assistant principal’s job for the money, so they apparently worked out a deal with each other.

When I was nearing sixth grade, a principal’s position opened up for which any educator needed a doctorate. My father somehow convinced the Board of Education that he had a doctorate. I never saw him study for one, and he never mentioned working on one, but before we knew it, people started referring to him as Doctor, and he got the principal’s position. I don’t think my mother could prove he did not have one and she may not have cared, since his salary doubled. I don’t know how he managed to fake having one, since getting a doctorate takes an extensive amount of time. Nonetheless, we couldn’t get a straight answer out of him for twenty years about what school he graduated from, where the papers were, etc., so we finally gave up.

In all fairness, I partially understood my parents’ feeling of pressure to look good to the outside world. They grew up during the Great Depression, and saw the societal progression from blacks not being allowed to use white-only facilities or go to schools of their choice, to the victories of the Civil Rights movement. They understandably had the burden of representing their whole race.

My father was a short man, good-looking, and though his hair grayed at the age of 17, he could pass for a man 20 years younger well into his 70s, thanks to L’Oréal. He was extremely charming and good-humored, fun to be around. All of his students loved him, and education was not just a job to him; he really had a passion for education. He worked in the project areas of the city and went over and beyond to make sure his students were given the best opportunities for learning. Like many great men in their professional field he had personal flaws, but it would be the twelfth of never before he would acknowledge any of them.

I rarely remember a time when he was shabbily dressed. If we were going to the grocery store, he had to look like he was giving a speech to dignitaries. We’d roll our eyes, but he’d say Girl, I’ve got to dress for my public, like he was a celebrity. Strangely enough, when he went to his favorite grocery store to shop, he really was quite the superstar. All the deli ladies and checkout girls knew Mr. Hester. The charmer would toss out compliments like a gay, little flower girl walking the aisle at a wedding. He had the formal mannerisms of a Sidney Poitier and had the smooth communications skills of a Ronald Reagan. By the time he got finished talking to you, you either wondered why you were angry with him in the first place or