Luke 5 vs 1 - 11 is a scripture that God has given us for the leadership retreat centre this year. "Launch out where it is deeper,'' will be our theme for the LDC this spring. It was also our theme for the women's retreat last week, and it featured several times in morning worship during the coaching workshop the previous week. So I've read the passage more than a dozen times over the past fortnight, sometimes in different English translations and sometimes in my Spanish Bible.
Reflecting on it again this morning, I though it was interesting to imagine what reactions and attitudes were behind the fishermen's words, reported so simply and neutrally in the text. The passage focuses on their amazement and wonder at the end of the story, but glosses over their disappointment at the beginning of the account. These were men who had worked hard all night and who had nothing to show for it. Perhaps this meant that they wouldn't earn any money and that their families wouldn't get anything to eat that day. Now they're sitting on the beach, coming to terms with the disappointment and trying to clean their empty nets, when along comes a man who's being pursued by a great crowd of people.
But, even amidst the noise and turmoil, Jesus "notices" the empty boats and asks permission to use one of them to push out a little onto the lake, from where He could teach the crowds more effectively. I don't know how long He spoke for, but it seems that Simon, still exhausted from a night of fruitless labour, was sitting patiently in the boat with Him. It was only when Jesus had finished teaching the crowds, that He turned around, looked Simon in the eye, and said, "Now launch out where it's deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish."
Did Simon roll his eyes when he heard this? What did this carpenter know about catching fish? Any experienced fisherman is able to tell you that the best fishing happens at night time and not in the morning light. They had already been fishing all night and hadn't caught a thing. Was there a note of sarcasm and patient resignation in Simon's voice when he said, "But if you say so, we'll let down the nets again."? Or had he been so impacted by the teaching he'd heard, that there was a genuine willingness to take a risk, to go against common sense, and to do exactly what Jesus was asking of him?
Either way, he experienced a miracle that opened his eyes to see Jesus and to see himself in a different light. After this experience, his life was never the same again.
In different ways, God sometimes asks you and me to "launch out where it's deeper" - to a place or a situation where we perhaps feel out of our depth, or feel afraid, or feel that it's useless because we've tried before and failed. In these kinds of situations, I guess we face the same choice as Simon Peter did: will we roll and eyes and think that we know best, or will we be willing to step out in obedience, simply because Jesus says so.
At the moment, in the face of some health challenges of the kind that come with growing older, I'm trying to discern what God has in mind for my summer outreach involvement this year. I've been part of birthing a vision for a European outreach to commemorate 500 years of the Reformation, and at the same time I'm still part of the core leadership team for the Planting Together outreach initiative in West Africa. So I find myself seeking the Lord and wondering whether it is feasible for me to commit to both of these outreach activities this summer.
My prayer for 2017 is that I would be sensitive to the prompting of Jesus - that, no matter how challenging or even illogical the things He asks of me might seem, I would live my life this year with an attitude of, "If you say so...., I'll do it, Lord." Sometimes it's only when you go out where it's deeper, that you discover there's incredible fruitfulness waiting just under the surface.
