Walking on Water: Footsteps of a Fisherman

By Norman Coggin

Why did Jesus choose an imperfect man like Peter? How could He love a man like Peter? The reason we wonder is because behind, underneath, and wrapped around those questions is a deeper more personal one: how can Jesus love me? We relate to Peter, not because of his personality, but because he was every bit as flawed as we are. One moment, his faith stood strong, and the next, he opposed God’s will with his own.

Peter was like us, with a desire for what is right but so inclined toward what is wrong. He was not exceptional by nature, but God used him exceptionally because he never stopped giving himself to God a little more completely after each lesson of the failure found in himself.

What turned out to be Peter’s greatest strength was admitting his own weakness: his need for a Savior. Why did Jesus choose Peter? It was because of grace, always and only. Peter knew it and never stopped pointing others to Jesus. Walking on Water is for every follower of Christ who has fallen flat on his or her face and failed completely one time or another—or many times over. Jesus picked Peter up every time, and he’ll pick you up, too, whether you feel you deserve it or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385004782

Norman Coggin

The author is a lifelong writer. It is not his hope for his name to be known but rather for the love of God he writes about to be further known. His dream is to share with as many as possible the love, encouragement, and correction our God is patiently and persistently teaching us all. Just as with his first book “Caretaker of a King”, an award-winning historical fiction about the life of Joseph the carpenter, this book uses fiction to bring life to the facts known from history. The intent is to put us all there, sharing the experiences and lessons in the life of Peter, walking with God’s Son, Jesus, from the time they first met to when Jesus took him home after a life well lived. Norm lives in Franktown Colorado with his wife Vickie, near their sons Nick and Joel, and their families. In free time, he enjoys jeeping in the Colorado mountains, tennis and travel. He was a homebuilder for years like his father but is now building a different kind of story inviting you to step inside to observe, imagine, and consider what was, and what might have been.

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Copyright © 2023 Norman Coggin.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0476-8 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0477-5 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0478-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023915445

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/13/2023

INTRODUCTION

Why did Jesus choose Peter? How could He love a man like Peter? The reason we wonder, we want to know, is because behind, underneath, and wrapped around those questions are deeper, more personal ones. How can Jesus love me? Does He? We relate to Peter, not because of his personality, whether similar to ours or not, but because he was every bit as deeply flawed as I am—as we all are. One moment, his faith stood strong, boldly declaring Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God; the next, he was opposing God’s will with his own. One impulse was to strike the servant of the high priest and to die defending Jesus; the next was to run, only to deny three times that he even knew Jesus. Peter was like us, with a desire for what is right but so inclined toward what is wrong. A common man. Peter was not exceptional by nature; he was used exceptionally by God because he never stopped giving himself to God a little more completely after each lesson of failure found in him. What turned out to be Peter’s great strength was admitting his own weakness, his need for a Savior. Why did Jesus choose Peter? Grace—always and only. Peter knew it and never stopped pointing others to Jesus to find it for themselves.

To every person who doesn’t deserve Jesus’s love, to every follower of Christ who has fallen flat on their faces and failed completely one time or another or many times over—Jesus picked Peter up every time.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Memories of Miriam

The Sea

Darkest before Dawn

You’ve Never Been Fishing with Me, Peter

A Call to Change

Synagogue

Naomi

Fever

I Am Willing

Nothing in Nain

Samaritan

Power

Centurion

Quiet

Fettered by Evil

Friend

Follow Me

A Touch, A Whisper

Why Is There Evil?

Martha

Let Them Come

Walking on Water

Come Forth

Dog

Before God

Mountaintop

Help My Unbelief

Bartimaeus

Time at Hand

Each Day in the Temple Courts

Hosanna

Withering

Father’s House

Later, You Will Understand

Friend or Fraud

Remorse

So Alone

Jesus Breathed His Last

Relentless Love

Open the Door

She Had to Know

Feed My Sheep

Tongues of Fire

No Chains on a Changed Man

Captive

Standing

Coming Home

About the Author

MEMORIES OF MIRIAM

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D ead still. The Sea of Galilee was as lifeless as Simon had ever seen it, and it matched his mood. The sea was peaceful; the turmoil was in his soul. His brother was asleep at the bow. Tired as he had been, Andrew came along anyway. He knew Simon didn’t really want to be entirely alone, and he didn’t want to be at home either. Too many memories at home. Still too fresh in his mind. Everywhere there were remembrances and evidences of Miriam’s touch there, and his mother-in-law had so many mannerisms and expressions that reminded him of her, of what they had shared together, the dreams that had died with her—dreams of a family. It was more than he could cope with just yet.

Work could be a distraction, an oasis of sorts, but right now there was really no work to be done. It would seem the fish had no more ambition than the wind and the water. He and Andrew had grown up fishing the sea with their father. They had seen it like this more than a few times. There would be no improvement, no catch until something changed. Andrew agreed to come along somewhat reluctantly and only on the condition that he could sleep until there was a reason to be awake. Nothing changed. Nothing had moved since an incessant fly followed them from shore. It had tormented Simon as he rowed them out to sea, sampling his sweat from every conceivable unreachable spot from his head to his foot, never landing long enough to swat or letting him be for long enough to find a moment’s peace. Peace, it seemed, was something in short supply these days.

On about the tenth try, Simon finally put an end to the fly’s miserable life with a slap from his leather belt, which had been laying with his tunic. His own internal misery was another matter entirely. Misery in a man’s soul is not so easily resolved.

With Andrew asleep and nothing to occupy him, Simon was left with his own thoughts. They were not good company these days. He had trouble sleeping and trouble with dreams when he was able to sleep. Regret was heavy. Miriam had been a wonderful wife. She deserved better in her short life, better than the husband he had been. He had loved her—and now, more than ever, he knew how deeply—but he had not loved her well. He had not put her needs above his own. Pity that now he could see it so clearly, how much and how often he had hurt her with careless callous comments. She had known him better than anyone, including Andrew, and still she believed in him, somehow finding something worthwhile in him. Simon was reliving one of those times when he had realized the thoughtless cruelty of his words. He was telling her how sorry he was. In his shame, he told her he didn’t know what she found to love in him. Secretly, he was hoping, almost pleading, to be assured she still did. He was afraid she might not be able to forgive him this time.

Seeing his genuine regret, Miriam—to his surprise—came over to hug him. I love you because even though you’re hardheaded, you’re softhearted. I swear, sometimes you say the worst things, things that should never come out of anyone’s mouth. But at the same time, you have the courage to say the things that need to be said. Like, ‘I’m sorry,’ right now. Maybe it’s two sides of the same coin. Yes, I still love you, she admitted. I can’t help it. I’ll take the courage and the humility, even if it comes with dash of foolishness.

Simon didn’t know what to say, so he teased, You find me irresistible then?

She was not ready for humor and just shook her head, wondering if she’d gotten through to him, even a little. Don’t talk, Simon, just hold me.

In fact, he’d taken to heart every word she’d said. As the Proverb says, she’d heaped coals on his head with her kindness. She was right—his being outspoken was both a blessing and a curse, for him as well as for her. People often mistook him for being self-centered and arrogant because of it. They thought he always had to be the center of attention. Admittedly, upon reflection, he was sometimes self-centered, but he had no need or desire to always be the center of attention anymore.

His greatest fear had been that, one day, Miriam would have had enough of him. He would fail her so completely or disappoint her so profoundly that she would give up on him. Simon feared she would walk away—or run, whether physically or emotionally. But Miriam had loved him right to the very end. She never left him. Yet she was still gone. In some ways, her faithfulness, the fact she had never stopped believing in him, made it all the harder to be without her now.

Simon saw himself as a fisherman. He wasn’t a poet, not at all like King David. Couldn’t write a psalm to save his soul, but the endless hours missing her, grieving and longing for her, had forged a few phrases in his heart, ones he likely would never share with anyone else. Maybe meant only to define in his own mind the loneliness her loss left him with. Words he would whisper to her if he could say goodbye just one last time—have the moment with her they never had.

"I can’t believe your time has come,

When God has made we two as one.

You can’t take half and leave a whole,

Unless it means the void in my soul.

The only thing that feels real,

Is the love that I still feel.

So how do I start anew,

When I can’t stop missing you?"

Darkness had fallen and it suited him, as did the solitude. No one could see the remorse etching his wind-battered face. Just to be doing something, he checked the nets. He knew it was just going through the motions.

Lamenting his failings as a husband to her, Simon used the courage she’d spoken of to face up to his faults. Most all of them, he knew, were rooted in his impatience. It’s just that when a conclusion or a course of action seemed obvious to him, he wanted to get on with it, do what was right, and forget about the consequences. That trait made him somewhat of a leader. When it proved the right thing to say or do, he could appear to be as decisive and noble as he aspired to be. Problem was, he was just as often exactly wrong because he didn’t take the time to consider all sides, and then those consequences he hadn’t considered had to be answered. Impulsive, yes—he had to own that criticism—but it all came back to his impatience. His words could be bold but just as easily hurtful when they were thoughtless.

Miriam had taken a sudden turn for the worse while he was away, and it was something for which he could not forgive himself. She had told him she was feeling better, that he should go to work, but this was one time he should not have listened to her. Her mother was there when some terrible complication took his wife and the child she carried. She had started bleeding, and it couldn’t be stopped. The life of both had simply drained out of her. So abruptly, the hope of a family turned to heartache and emptiness. It felt as if a traumatic anguish, a suffocating sorrow, was pulling him under, drowning him. He just could not find the will to seek the surface. If there was a blessing to be found, it was only in that nothing had been left unsaid that should be. Miriam knew how much he loved her, how precious she was to him. His mother-in-law had even tried to comfort him with that fact, but there were so many things he shouldn’t have said, words that had wounded her sensitive heart, slights he wished he could take back or somehow make up for.

Simon grieved, staring into the empty, lifeless waters. He recalled the disappointment on her face at his answer when she’d asked about his hopes for their soon-to-be family. She was so full of anticipation and joy, as well as sudden mood swings, unpredictable ones—for him, at least. They shared some of the same thoughts: their child’s first words, first steps; feasts and festivals they would observe as a family. Then, in one of his few philosophical, reflective moments, Simon went on to confess his hope that he’d find more of a sense of purpose as a father, sharing the feeling he’d had that there had to be more to life than the daily routine. Her mood changed abruptly. Miriam took it all wrong, not coming close to understanding him. If he wasn’t happy, she’d told him, it wasn’t fair to her as a wife or to their child to expect them to make him happy.

Simon looked out and felt the stagnant darkness all around him. He drew in the silence and brooded over what was past. Searching the surface of the still water for some sort of diversion, he found none. Instead, it seemed to mirror his mood, even provoking his melancholy.

If it were possible, he thought he missed Miriam even more now than when she had first passed from this life almost four months ago. Now, he was so well acquainted with the aloneness that had taken up residence in his soul, taken residence in all the places Miriam had filled. He could still see her, perhaps a little better when he closed his eyes and blocked out anything else. He could hear her too. When it was quiet, like it was now, he could hear her—what she would say and how she would say it. Whether reminiscing about her scolding him or praising him, he loved remembering the sound of her voice. But he could not feel her next to him. It was all just memories, both a haven and a haunting for his heart. He felt the anxiety at not being with her now, in the present, whatever she was doing, whatever the life after held. He wanted to be sharing that journey with her, moment by moment. It was how they had intended to live their lives.

What tortured him most was that he had not been with her at the moment of her death. He felt like he had failed her when she needed him. It was his mother-in-law who had held her when she was asking for him, and they had sent someone to try to bring him, but when she had called his name right at the last, he wasn’t there. He was out on this cursed sea, trying to find fish. He returned home too late, only to hold a hand that could no longer hold his. He could not escape the memory of it.

THE SEA

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T his Sea of Galilee—he probably knew it as well as any man alive. He had been fishing it with his father from his earliest youth, along with Andrew, asleep there at the bow. Simon was still a young man, though he didn’t feel like it just now. What he didn’t know from his own experience, he’d been taught by his father or Zebedee, his father’s friend—James’s and John’s dad—with whom they still partnered regularly. Simon had known as well as anyone could that there would be no fish tonight. Casting the nets had just been a diversion, one that was not working. He was out here simply to be alone with loneliness, with grief, to take one more step at working through it. Andrew was here because he loved Simon, and so he didn’t do anything too impulsive, whatever it might be.

There was just enough of a crescent moon searching for a path through the clouds to dimly define the surface of the sea. Simon lay a hand on the net to feel if they transmitted any animation of life, but there was nothing.

Simon’s thoughts suddenly turned on the Sadducees he detested. What might seem like a leap actually made sense if the progression of his thoughts were traced. Sure, he hated the Pharisees too but not quite so much. At least they didn’t crush all hope. Both groups were proud, steeped in their religious arrogance, and Simon had no tolerance for it or for the self-serving religion they practiced. Worst of all was the Sadducees teaching that there was no life after death. Where the Pharisees or the teachers of the law discouraged people’s hopes with the burden of their traditions to earn God’s favor, the Sadducees took away all hope. According to them, Miriam and his and Andrew’s parents were simply gone, except for the memories people held on to. If that were true, what was the point to it all? Why bother with life? Sure, there were joys but so many sorrows. Sooner or later, there was always tragedy. It was only a question of when, not if. If this was all there ever was, such as it is, why go on with it? Looking down into the vast void of the waters, he thought about how much of his life had been given to this sea. Why not just give it what was left, here and now? Slip into the still surface and let the depths claim what remained. Find out for himself if he could rejoin Miriam or if those pathetic Sadducees were right. Either way, it would be over.

Simon knew he would never really do that—not to Andrew and not to his friends, the people who really loved him—but he wanted to know, to be assured somehow. Didn’t the scriptures say that God had put eternity in the heart of man? (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Was it Solomon who’d said that? He couldn’t remember. That’s what he believed though, what he felt in his own heart to be true. One day, if God was gracious, he might see Miriam and his other loved ones again, apart from this world’s sin and corruption. Apart from his own. If it was to be in heaven, then there would be no Sadducees, no Pharisees, and no publican tax collectors or Romans either. None of the antagonists who brought about such suffering to this life.

As an almost intentional distraction, Simon allowed himself to quietly recall his bitterness for their local publican and indulged in his despising of the man. In classic Galilean fisherman fashion, he called down from heaven every imaginable malady that might befall a man, a cursory rehearsal of what he wished upon him, from leprosy to a withering of what the Proverbs might call a man’s fountain. The traitor had decided that he and Andrew, James, and John were having a good year and therefore owed more in Roman taxes.

Simon hacked and spit into the water. Is that what a tax collector calls a good year, when your wife and child die? He was a steaming pile of soft dung left to step on, in Simon’s esteem. Andrew remembered his name, whatever it was, but as far as Simon was concerned, it only mattered to mark his grave, and he wouldn’t have bothered. Andrew had backed Simon away from him when their new tax was assigned, before there could be any further interaction that might end up involving the Romans.

One good catch, brother, Andrew told him. Not something to get us all killed over.

Simon knew Andrew was right, but why should they pay the price of another man’s sin? Why should anyone pay for another’s sin? Andrew knew Simon, probably better than anyone ever had before Miriam. In a less volatile way, he shared many of Simon’s views. Tax collectors tended to die younger than most. Perhaps it was a matter of conscience, either their own or someone else’s who they had pushed too far.

Simon wondered if his conscience would ever allow him to kill a tax collector. He knew his anger would.

Miriam hadn’t been able to understand when he had complained that there had to be more to life than fishing—a better reason to get up each day than whatever prosperity could be had by catching a few more fish today than yesterday. She had jumped to the conclusion he was discontent with their life, that he wasn’t committed to her, to their family, and to being a husband and father. She was in the family way, as they said, and everything he’d spoken of had been measured in that context. That was not the case at all.

Purpose—he longed for purpose; it’s what he had wanted for his wife and his family as well. In his soul, he felt something was missing. Whatever it was, the Pharisees and Sadducees were not the ones to look to for help. First of all, they didn’t care about a fisherman, and more significantly, they were just as lost as he was. They were just too blind to see it. All they cared about was being the most highly honored among the lost. They looked down on the common men like him, but they were insolently arrogant as far as Simon could see. Their lives held no more certainty. They were a perfect illustration of what his father always told him: Wisdom never partners with pride.

Simon was not an educated man, not in the sense most thought of. There had not been the opportunities or the time when he was younger, and he had been too disruptive in their small Bethsaida synagogue school. He loved learning, but he had hated school when he was a kid; he was just too fidgety to sit still. Learn by doing. That was his nature, and it led to some successes and plenty of failures for all the world to see.

One thing he remembered that his teachers had told him was that if you start with nothing, no matter how many times you multiplied, it did not change. You still had nothing. But Simon knew for a fact, from personal experience, when it came to emptiness inside a man, it could be multiplied. It had grown tenfold in him since Miriam died.

The sliver of a moon peered out through the clouds again, casting a blue-black hue to everything below. Simon looked at his brother, still sleeping soundly. The two men loved each other deeply, but it was something simply understood throughout most of the daily routine. They spoke of it only on occasions when the affirmation of it was most important and most needed. Andrew had made it a point to tell him several times through recent days.

It usually required sheer exhaustion for Simon to enjoy any real sleep. Just deciding it was time to get some rest and lying down till his mind cleared and he drifted off seemed an impossible dream for him. Without some routine or something else to engage his mind, intrusive thoughts crept in. Closing his eyes, he felt as if he was stepping on the other side of a curtain, back in time, when he came home to find Miriam gone, so suddenly, so absolutely. But there were also treasured memories he clung to. Most of his thoughts of her were beautiful, and he attended to them lovingly. When they came on their own or he sought them again, these wonderful recollections were a welcome intrusion on life as it was now. Such a reminiscing beckoned him, and he anxiously closed his eyes to step past that curtain.

Simon remembered again the first time he’d held her hand in his; he could almost physically feel it. She seemed even smaller by contrast when standing next to Simon, which is where she loved to be. Miriam was rather slight and slender in stature as a very young woman. Oddly, because of that, she might easily be mistaken as taller if she was seen from a distance. Simon had quite literally overlooked her among the young women in Bethsaida as the two of them grew up in their little fishing town on the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee. She was more aware of Simon than he was of her, though she had never considered the two of them as a couple either.

Their relationship began to change when Simon’s father pointed her out one day as a girl who was turning out to be a nice young woman. It was after he’d sold fish to her, on the most recent of several occasions. For the first time, Simon began to pay more acute attention. Then she caught him looking a time or two and answered his easy smile with hers. His glance lingered long enough to suggest it was no accident their eyes had met; he had been hoping for it. Watching her became a passion for him. She unknowingly had captivated his thoughts before she was really quite sure of his interest. Thinking back, he wasn’t even sure he admitted it to himself—how he purposely tried to make occasion for their paths to cross or to make some kind of positive impression on her father.

Simon had always taken a casual interest in women and enjoyed the fact that he caught their eye, but this was different; this was not just a passing appreciation. Twice, he caught a glimpse of her when her hair was loose for a moment as she rearranged it or tucked it in. Black, flowing, loosely curling as it cascaded around her neck and shoulders, the image of it stayed with him. He found himself wondering who she spent time with and realized he was concerned that someone else might be thinking about her the way he was. He was jealous of her, and the feeling was growing, not fading. Aside from Simon, Miriam was not considered by many to be beautiful. She was pretty in her own way, but the more Simon got to know her, the more fascinating she was to him. She was kind, well mannered, confident, and self-assured but not self-possessed. She had a strong, gentle spirit and a genuine interest in others. Simon couldn’t imagine himself with anyone else, and he could hardly concentrate on anything else. First, he spoke to his father; then together, they spoke to hers.

The marriage contract was considered and an agreement reached. He remembered so clearly the day she was asked if she agreed. He would have thought if her father were giving her a choice, it should have already been discussed and accepted before they met to seal the covenant of marriage. If it was, Simon had not been told. He hoped and imagined Miriam would anxiously approve with joyous excitement. That’s how he wanted to picture it in his mind, but his fear drew another picture, one of her rejecting his proposal.

When her father asked if she agreed, Miriam hesitated, and Simon agonized. His eyes had been lit with longing but now suddenly dimmed with doubt. Much later, he would learn her reason.

"I was flattered that you