THROW THE NET ON THE OTHER SIDE

There is a story in the scripture where Jesus is on the shore teaching the crowd. They continue to press in on Him until He has nowhere to go but onto a boat of one of the local fisherman and have him put out from the shore. I am sure that Jesus was quit aware of the man's name and how influential he would become in the near future. The story goes that the men had been fishing all night and had caught nothing. They were tired and were calling it a day, when Jesus tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat. That doesn't make sense! Peter replies that they had been fishing all night and had caught nothing. What would one more cast make? Same boat, same net and same lake.

The approach that we take, so many times to ministry, is to start asking ourselves what is wrong with the boat? What is wrong with our net? What is wrong with our lake? We will become discouraged and try to find a different boat or net or lake when there might have been nothing wrong with it in the first place. It could be quit possible that lack of fish is the will of God. How unimportant this story would have been if they were actually catching fish. What glory would God get out of that?

So here we are. Fishing for men in a boat, net and lake that are not producing. At least in my eyes. I am sure there is much more going on that I am not aware of. I found myself sitting there thinking about my tactics/goals/purpose and this story came to mind. In fact it almost was like Jesus said right to me "throw your net on the other side". Not anything different from what I tried in the past but to just do it again.

I am not claiming to have any key to ministry here, just a wondering thought that made me think about the word 'Persistence'.