We Have Toiled All Night But At Your Word

This is a passage that was spoken about at the men's getaway just a few days ago and it stuck with me...

"On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, 'Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.' And Simon answered, 'Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.' And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking." - Luke 5:1-6 ESV

If you have been fishing all night and have caught nothing the last thing you want to do is go back out.

This brings many things to mind but at the moment I am thinking about Godly leadership. Jesus asks to speak from their boat. He asks them to go out again. He doesn't demand it but He Is believing His Father in Heaven and speaking about divine things.

Who will talk about grace? Who will introduce God into the conversation? Who will say, 'Let us go out into the deep? I know it isn't convenient right now but I'm going let's go together'?

My outreach leader makes phone calls to the team every week on Saturday morning and if people are doing something else he just encourages them in what they are doing but that call means something. He is a man willing to stand in the boat and preach. He is willing to say, 'Let's launch out into the deep and fish.'

"They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken..." - Luke 5:7-9 ESV

Peter said that then but he later became the man who stood up to preach when no one else would. Church history tells us that Peter died a martyr with great dignity as a man of faith and leadership.

Thank God for the men and women who are willing to talk about Jesus and say His name when everyone else just speaks in bland generalities of goodness and morality. Thank God for the people who will say, 'Let's go and see what fish the Father has waiting for us' just past our comfort zone.

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