Into the Deep

At Kristen's life celebration service the "guest book" was a daily devotional book. Some days I read it, some weeks I don't. There has been one that has really stuck out to me that I have kept bookmarked.

"Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Luke 5:4
A lot of us have limited vision. We base most of our activities and plans on what we've learned from experience and the interests, talents, and abilities we know we have. We are reluctant to get in over our heads because of the discomfort we feel in such situations. We don't like having demands placed on us that are beyond our resources.

When Jesus calls us to follow Him, He always pushes us beyond our experience and beyond our abilities. Peter had been fishing all night with no results when Jesus' instruction came to put out into deep water. All of Peter's intuition told him that the exercise would be fruitless. But Jesus doesn't call us to do the same things we've always done in the same ways we've always done them. He call us to launch out further and deeper, to places where we cannot depend on our own experience and abilities. He puts us in places where we must depend entirely on Him.

Next time you feel helpless in a situation and know you're in over your head, remember the sovereign Lord who placed you there. He has intimate knowledge of the deep. He is master over all the elements of His creation. He knows what awaits us there. He is Lord of the wind and the waves, the harvest, the loneliness, or whatever else might face us "in the deep."

The deep water can be a scary place to be. For Peter, it seemed like a pointless place to be. We are helpless there. But we cannot avoid it and be obedient to Jesus at the same time. This is the way to bear fruit in His kingdom. This is where the catch is. They way of discipleship will eventually lead us there. Jesus knows what it takes to bear fruit - and it always involves going beyond our own experience, our limited vision, and our resources. He calls us to launch out into places where we have no choice but to depend on His instructions and His power.