Sunday, March 07, 2010

Jumping over the edge...

So here's the story from John 21...

Jesus has been crucified, appeared to His disciples twice and then Peter stands up and says "I'm going fishing." Several others say they'll go with Peter and off they go.
Unfortunately, they didn't catch anything all night long.
The next morning Jesus shows up on the shore (only the disciples in the boat don't realize it's Him). He asks them if they have any meat and they say "No", so He instructs them to throw the net on the right side of the ship.

They do, and by a miracle they catch so many fish they were not able to draw it in because there was just too much.

So that is when one special disciple named John turns to Peter and He indicates the man on the shore and says "It is the Lord."

Here is what the Bible tells us happened next:

"Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship dragging the net with fishes."

There is something in me that has always called me to jump into the sea. Something inside me that screams that the little ship just isn't fast enough, not immediate enough. I want to spend my life jumping over the edge of the ship and swimming towards my Lord, every time.

There is nothing wrong with taking the ship. It gets you there, and someone had to be responsible enough to haul the fish they'd caught. And while I'm prone to an extraordinarily frustrating level to do the "responsible" thing - when someone tells me "There's Jesus", I want to leap.

No waiting. No arranging my recent catch. No getting my affairs in order. Just jump. And I love that the Bible gives me perfect examples of others doing the same thing.

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