Cast out your Nets

My wife recently got a daycare job in Charlotte, NC. This took us to a place we wanted to be, where we know we can serve in great churches, but I have to admit something. I wasn’t exceedingly happy about the way God was bringing us back to Charlotte.

My wife and I have worked in childcare before. We’ve done it in Charlotte. The result of that was nothing. It’s part of what motivated me to go to Korea, and to try to fix things my own way. When we came back we knew God had amazing plans for us. Then this job came along. Just like what we were doing before.

I admit it. I didn’t get it at first. Part of me was frustrated, and upset. We’d done this before, and nothing had come out of it. It didn’t move us forward. It just kept us surviving. Going back to what appeared to be the same thing just irritated me. It really irritated me. At one point, I sat in my car, and talked to God about it. Not in a calm tone, but with some anger in my voice. I was really confused, and asked him a lot of questions.

Did this mean we were wrong to come back from Korea? Could I not trust myself? I didn’t know. Not until God pointed me to one of my favorite passages of scripture.
I’ve written about this scripture before, but not in this way. It’s from the account of the call of Peter. The verses are Luke 5:4-6:

“When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’ But Simon answered and said to him, ‘Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at your word I will let down the net.’ And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.”

Suddenly, I got it. Maybe my wife and I had done this before, and maybe nothing came out of it last time. That didn’t matter, and it doesn't matter. Jesus was telling us to try again. At his word we must. I can trust Jesus, and obey him in this. I can know that it will lead to a massive catch.

I reveal all this because I know some have experienced this same thing. Maybe Jesus is calling you to do something, and you don’t get it. You’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work. You’ve tried reconciling with that person before, and they slammed the door in your face. You’ve been going to that same job every day, and it’s never led anywhere. You’ve tried that ministry before, and it failed. You don’t know why Jesus would call you to do it again. You just can’t logically understand it.

The beauty of this is that we don’t have to understand. We just have to cast out our nets. Maybe we’ve toiled all night, and caught nothing. That doesn’t matter. At the word of Jesus we should be willing to go out into the deep, and cast out our nets. We should obey because he knows more than we know. We should cast out our nets, and prepare for the massive catch that is coming our way.