So you begin to wash your nets…preparing to go home…pondering another failure…you’ve worked hard..spent your finances preparing for the big catch…the beautiful dream launch…

….and ….nothing….happens…

Yet the Master climbs into your now idle and stranded boat…”put me out a little from land.” From here He taught the multitudes…

Then he merely says “Launch into the deep Simon..and let down your nets for a catch…”

I can almost picture his weariness and discouragement. His eyes are blood shot from an all night work and his shoulders are slumped from the wear and tear from the push and pull of the heavy nets..he is physically and emotionally spent. I wonder what he was thinking that he never said aloud..

“What’s the use…let’s just clean our nets and head home..we are exhausted. All of this work has cost us so dearly. .yet we have nothing to show for it…perhaps this dream wasn’t mine after all…”

But Simon’s heart is to obey the Master…so he gently responds:

“Nevertheless…at Your word..I will let down the net..”

Suddenly the net was about to break with the fullness of fish..and Simon couldn’t reel in the net alone. So he called his partners in the other boat to help him. The catch was so large both boats began to sink…

Immediately Simon fell in sorrow of heart at his lack of trust in the Master. Surely at also his lack of sight…discernment…and his ears that seemed to not hear.

Perhaps he realized he had been fishing all along without the Master in his boat with him…for his skill and self reliance surely would be enough…

Perhaps he realized he had kept safe staying too close to the shore..when Christ was calling him to go into the deep places of his heart and Kingdom…he was in shallow water trying to catch that which can only be caught out in the deep. Simon would need different tools and a different mindset for deep sea fishing…

Perhaps he realized he had kept casting the nets on the wrong side of the boat…he kept going left when Jesus said go on the right side! His vision was not in line with the Lord’s yet…for in the past and present the left was always the side he dropped the nets..he was stuck in a familiar pattern…yet going nowhere….only coming up empty time and time again…

Perhaps he saw he was trying to catch the wrong things…money, success, prestige, or acknowledgement…when Christ was calling him to catch men…..

Yet..the one moment when simple obedience overruled his emotions, his fatigue, and his lack of faith…he said…”Nevertheless. ..at Your Word..”

and the rest is history..

A Pondering of Luke 5:1-11
February 15, 2017