What do we do when Jesus shows up in a place we kinda wish He wouldn't? This is a question sparked by our last week's staff Bible Study and I've been meditating on it ever since. The passage we studied was Luke 5:1-11. The fishing disciples had been out ALL NIGHT casting their nets, bringing up nothing. In early morning, they pulled back to shore, unloaded and were starting to clean their nets. Tired, probably hungry, feeling discouraged.
In walks Jesus. In walks 'multitudes' of people, invading your space. You're kneeling down, using a somewhat dull knife to scrape old smelly fish scales off your hands, when a shadow passes over you. Squinting, you look up and there hovering over you is this man you've heard about, slight in posture, browned by the sun, a sparse beard-- nothing noteworthy, yet who has a commading presence. He tells you He needs to use your boat. For some reason your body obeys. You and some of your mates step in with this familiar stranger and push off from shore a bit. People are thronging, grasping, calling out. The man in your boat starts to speak. A hushing silence on shore. The rumbling in your stomach fades into the sound of his voice, your heavy eyelids are no longer weighing you down. You are moved in some inexplicable way, his words rising and falling as the gentle waves lap against the side of your boat. Conscious that your God-fearing father is nearby fuming at the words of this--prophet? you massage your already arthiritic hands and contemplate what's being said.
Suddenly the crowd is being sent on its way, your hunger pains come back and your eyelids, once again, threaten early dreams. You are aching to leave, nay run, from this place, to find solace in the arms of a wife who hadn't heard. To bury your head under blankets that will lull away the change that has started to occur. But this man, this irrationaly rational man, turns to YOU and says, 'Push out for deeper water'. Frustrated, tired, confused...yet you set out. The man's silence unnerves you and you try with all your might to gain back all you know you just lost. You roll back your sleeves, puff out your chest, bark out a few orders to your friends. And then, this skinny, dark Hebrew man whose obviously never spent a night of fishing in his life tells you to cast your net. This is just too much. You look at him bewildered, angry and arrogantly remind him that you spent all night expertly fishing and there ain't a fish out there. Yet, because he said to, you'll do it. With aching muscles and disdain in your heart, you lift your freshly cleaned, heavy net over the side of the boat. What's happening? You start to lose your balance as your humble fishing boat starts violently thrashing around in the water. Help me lift! you cry out to your astonished co-workers. The once empty net, now breaking its seams with fresh catch barely makes it back into the boat. You fall down is astonishment and horror at the feet of this man, prophet, king. Get away from me!! I am sinful! Somehow your sinking ship makes it back to shore. Someone's counting how many fish there are. Your whole world is swirling around your head as your heart pounds its way out of your chest. The man speaks. "From now on I will make you a fisher of men."
What do you do when God steps into your reality, your job, your fatigue, your hunger, your ministry? What do you do when you have been working endless hours with no fruit, when you have moved on to other things, when you've made plans to sleep, to eat, to travel, to whatever... and the Holy Spirit says, "Hey, I need to use you for a little while longer. I need your job, your resources, your time, your energy, your strength, so that I can speak to these people invading your 'space'. And then after that, I want you to work some more in the area that isn't bringing forth finance, or fruit. In fact, I want you to leave this shore and the hope of rest and push out even farther than you were before. What's more, I want to break your pride and your self-sufficiency by showing you I can do what you spend your whole life doing, in about 2 seconds. And with the blessing of abundance that I bring to you, I'm going to change the course of your life and take you even further away from your comfort zone."
Just five minutes before our Bible Study started, I was sitting in a secluded area, trying to hold back tears of fatigue and frustration, angry at God for bringing me here, reminding him that I am an introvert who needs lots of quiet to create and refuel, telling Him that I can't take it anymore, fearing that if someone approached me in that moment they would see the sinful monster I really am. Knowing that I couldn't run home and hide under my blankets, I asked God for strength and grace just to make it through the next two hours. In dry obedience I worshipped in Spanish. The Holy Spirit commandeered my voice to sing praises to Him. And then this passage of Scripture...
The questions we were asked to answer were: What is your shore? What are the things that keep you from leaving shore? Once you do leave shore, what are the obstacles that keep you from continuing in obedience?
In my soul I cringed. My heart cried out, "Oh God! I am sinful!" Truly, truly, I cling to shore. I cling to comfort, I cling to dreams, I cling to my temperment, I cling to things I don't have. Once I follow, sometimes grudgingly, in obedience, my heart is often full of complaint, full of excuses, full of dread. I count the seconds until work is over. I fantasize about food, about sleep. I don't trust God.
Everyday my faith gets challenged. Do I really believe on Him? Do I really want Him to take over? Do I really think His ways are better than mine? When He enters my boat to do what He wants to do, do I rejoice? Do I welcome Him and pray that His Word saves the throngs of those listening? Do I with bright eyes, say "Sure Lord! Let's go do deeper waters and do the impossible?"
Usually not. But because of His faithfulness and love for me; because He knows me and wants better things for me, He continues to pursue me. He continues to climb in my boat and ask me to shove off into deeper water. Because He is confident in himself and knows that my tired, aching, weary self needs what He has; needs what He is.
He doesn't look at our weakness, our physical limitations, our talents or abilities. He always sees who we are in Him and loves to bring the natural into the supernatural. When we are broken down and at the end of our rope, He sees the door opening for miraculous opportunity.
May God reach into you, into those places that you believe you still own, grab hold of your heart and take you into uncharted waters where eternity meets the temporal and magic happens.
