The Great Catch of Fish
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(A re-telling, from Peter’s perspective)
I raised my eyes, tentatively, furtively, my confession still hanging in the air. His eyes caught mine. Accepting. Welcoming. Yet shaking foundations. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.
He put his finger right on it. Why had fear been my gut response? Oh, there was marvel. But fear was more basic.
The question he’d asked earlier hadn’t jarred at all. “Can I sit in your boat? To teach?” Sure. So, the crowds gathered, men and women pressing forward at the shore like fish drawn up in a net.
Finished, dismissing the crowds, he said to me, “Simon, it’s time to fish. Head out, into the deep, put down your nets for a catch.”
A catch? There’d been nothing all night! I told him so, thinking, almost out loud, what any fisherman would know, that if you don’t catch anything in the cool of the night, you certainly won’t catch anything in the heat of the day. Disgruntled, but unspoken. “Nevertheless, Master, simply because you say so, I’ll do it.”Responsibility his.
Out we went, painful with those clean and mended nets. Out they went into the cool deep. Immediately, they grew taut, weighted down. “Great!”, I thought, “snagged!” I pulled and they gave – not snagged, but weighty. Hand over hand they came. “Andrew,” I shouted, “give me some help!” My brother rose from his place of cynical amusement, his hand, feeling the weight, making him urgent. On came the net, water dripping from hands into the boat. And then all across the surface of that deep – churning, shimmering – were fins and tails and scales. Fish! Spilling uncontrollably into the boat, slipping, crashing, flopping one over another.
"James! John!”, I hollered toward the shore, “Get out here quick!” Our partners, heaving at the oars, bobbed up next to us, only to be swamped themselves with fish upon fish, both boats sinking dangerously low in the quiet waves.
I looked at fish and Master, fell to my knees in slime and scale, and made my confession. “Get away from me, Lord – I’m a sinful man.” Eyes that could see through those murky depths to untapped shoals of fish, must be seeing right through me, right then, right there. Fear shot through me with the exposure. How could I even share the same boat?
It was then his eyes caught mine anew, like burning coals to unclean lips, saying, “Don’t be afraid – from now on you’ll be catching people.”
He ran roughshod over fear, calling me to partnership in his boat, not mine. At that new beginning he made his point clear. He knew exactly what he was doing – no mistaking it. “I know where the fish are,” he was telling me. More pointedly, “I know how to get fish and net connected.”
It was true then and it’s true now. Down in Jerusalem. Up in Judea and Samaria. And, yes, in every end of the earth where the Master commands nets be dropped into the deep. It’s the Master who knows. Now full nets only happen with eyes on him.
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Lord, you know where the fish are. Please use my life as a net to connect with those who need to be saved alive into the Kingdom. Use me today, however you choose.
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Reflect:
In what circumstance, or in what relationships, can you focus this prayer? Where is the Lord wanting to use you?
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Photo by Isabela Kronemberger on Unsplash
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