John 6:66-71 NASB
[66] As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. [67] So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” [68] Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. [69] We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” [70] Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” [71] Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

Dear God, I told a friend yesterday that if you read John’s Gospel and don’t believe the first 15 verses—“In the beginning was the Word…”—then for the rest of the book, Jesus comes off as quite radical and mad. I confess that I would probably have been a person who fell away during this chapter. I need thousands of years of history to see this picture more clearly.

As for Peter, he was just keeping it simple. When it came down to it, he completely believed in you and realized that he had nowhere else to go that would be what you are. Was it an easy life, following you around? No. But it was the best life.

This makes me think of marriage to some extent. I’m grateful that I feel like you’ve given me an ability to look beyond my emotions in a given moment and fast forward to a time when the emotions are gone. What I mean is that when my wife and I were dating and I was deciding I wanted to marry her, I didn’t dream about the early years of marriage. I tried to imagine myself as a 60-year-old waking up in the morning and seeing her at the breakfast table. Would I still want to talk to her? Would I still enjoy her company? Was it a pleasant thought? I got an image in my mind, and while we have certainly encountered struggles along the way, and while I’m still a good decade shy of 60, I can gratefully say that my image has proven to be true. The grass is never greener on the other side of the fence. Peter knew that to be true of Jesus, and while I can now take that as a given in my faith, I can say that I firmly believe that there is no greener grass for me than the grass I enjoy with my wife.

Father, make me the husband and father you need me to be. I still don’t really know what I’m doing in any of these areas. I let my wife and children down all of the time. So help me to lean into my ignorance and seek out your leading. Use my ignorance to drive me into your leading in how you need me to love them, and into what you want to do to help me grow closer to you through them.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen