I finally got around to watching The Chosen. It's early in the series, but one scene has stuck with me. It's of Peter, frustrated after a night of failed attempts to catch fish. If prayer is merely conversation with God, Peter begins to pray. It's not the composed prayer we might recite on Sunday mornings. Rather, it's the kind that grows from weariness and unmet expectations.
Peter isn't happy about his circumstance. And he isn't too thrilled with the Lord either.
As he casts out and draws in his empty nets, he recounts what God has done for his people. What some might call rehearsing the story of God. He does so remembering what God had done for "us," before he let's out some frustration he, personally, has with the Lord.
This kind of scene from projects like The Chosen always spark debate. How much of this is biblical or artistic interpretation? I can remember being so sure of myself and my thoughts of God. Over the years, the Holy Spirit has taught me to consider that all honest engagement with scripture and with God is interpretive. 
No, the Bible doesn't record this particular dialogue Peter had with God. But we can imagine it. Think about your life and your moments of uncertainty and questioning.
If that isn't enough, go back to the Bible and remember Moses.
Moses did not forget the promises of God. As much as he may have trusted what God told him, he wasn't seeing it happen the way he thought. He felt like God might be bailing out. So, he said, "please show me your ways."
Those are just words, but many of us can feel them. I know I've prayed like that. Maybe you have, too.
We are sure God's timing is perfect. But the Lord works through divine kairos and we rely on the ticking of chronos. And we often feel the tension of the space in between.
Maybe that's what Peter's scene was trying to communicate. Wrestling with his nets was a way to illustrate our wrestling in the in-between time, waiting on God.
Stay blessed...john | 
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