Fishing Without Him

He let them go fishing alone. They had caught nothing. They were washing their nets.

“Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” The stranger on the shore, the Savior of the world, makes a request of a weary fisherman.

His hands: worn from years of throwing nets. His body: tired from a night of moving the boat from place to place in search of some success. His soul: weary from a fruitless night and a life of many nights like this one. Dirty. Worn. Weary. Tired.

But his heart was ready.

“Because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Oh, I’ve been there. My answer isn’t always quite the same. “I don’t want to go back out. I am tired. I have had enough. I have failed. Can’t you see?!  I have tried again and again and again—and again. Where were you? Why me? I’ve given up.”

My life: broken. My soul: gasping. My heart: bruised and crushed, longing for the hope that I will find peace at last.

Oh, but you see, Jesus knew what Simon Peter didn’t. He knew what I didn’t, that a life in His presence would so far outshine all that I had known before; that just one taste of His goodness and I would never be the same; that my life of struggling in my own effort could never compare to the sweetness of following Him.

Have you been there? Tired from going from effort to effort with the hope of finding an answer, a cure, peace, hope?

His hands: pierced. His body: broken, so that your soul doesn’t have to be. His heart: desperate just for you.

When you reach that moment when your struggling can’t go on, when you have been “fishing” alone for far too long, when you are washing empty nets, look up and listen. See if you can hear the Savior calling from the shore.

May you have the faith to heed the call. May you recognize that life is different in His presence.

He knew what they didn’t, that when He got in the boat His presence made all the difference. “They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.”

Makes fishing without Him seem pointless doesn’t it?

PRAYER:  Father, may I be ever mindful of the difference Your presence makes in my life. Keep me attentive to Your voice, aware of You, undistracted.

“Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught,” Luke 5:4 KJV.

Today’s devotion is by Matthew McCord. An attorney in McDonough, GA, Matt describes himself simply as a son, a brother, a friend, a musician, a teacher…and a lawyer. He is equally comfortable in the boardroom, the courtroom, the classroom, by a trout stream, and in church.