After Jesus was crucified, Peter and some other disciples went back to where they were from and started fishing again. Fishing was something they were naturally comfortable with, and they knew how to do it. Yet, after working all night they had caught nothing.
They heard somebody yell from the shore asking if they had caught anything. They yelled back that they hadn’t caught any fish. The person yelled again,
“Try it again on the other side boat.”
One of the guys shrugged his shoulders and said, “What’ve we got to lose?” Peter was too tired to argue, so they threw the net out on the other side. Even in their wildest dreams they’d never seen so many fish.
This caught John’s attention. “Peter, that’s Jesus!” he announced. But Peter was already swimming for shore. As Peter was swimming he remembered that this wasn’t the first time Jesus had given he and his friends strange instructions for fishing.
There was the time when Jesus told them to go into deeper water (where no one had ever caught fish before), and their nets were filled like never before. Then there was the time when they needed some money and Jesus told them to catch a fish and there would be gold in its mouth.
When you’re about to give up
In the push and pressure of circumstances that are going wrong, we become frustrated and discouraged. We get confused as to why things aren’t working out. It seems like we keep winding up in the same kind of difficulty. We get tempted to take matters into our own hands, or worse yet, to give up.
But Jesus comes into our situation and tells us to do something that often seems silly or illogical. He requires us to trust him, and to operate in faith. What then transpires is something that could never happen if we were left on our own resources—a miracle!
In any reoccurring difficulty (finances, relationships, attacks, etc.) the temptation to give up can be great, but the possibility for a miracle is greater. It’s in these times that God teaches us how great he is, builds our faith, and then gives us a testimony of what he did, and what he can do.
Cast your net one more time.
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