Peaks and Valleys

Interesting conversation in small group Friday night. We were talking about Peter's walk on stormy waters, and how, after he had already experienced the wonder of operating successfully in the power of God, he lost faith in himself and began to sink. It seems many of us have had that experience, where we follow up a clearly triumphant experience of God's power in our lives with some sort of withdrawal or denial, to some extent negating the significance of the moment. It's as if we don't want to admit God's faith in our ability to perform, because we might only be lucky, not empowered, and it will catch up with us if we don't pull back. Look at Elijah (I Kings 18-19) when he dramatically demonstrated God's power and had the priests of Baal killed, and then ran in fear when Jezebel threatened to retaliate by ending his life. God was gracious, but why the 180 degree about-face?