I've sung, "I will make you fishers of men if you follow me . . . if you follow me . . . if you follow me! I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me."
So, instead of lowering the giant nets into the water to physically catch fish, I am invited to follow JESUS and appeal to the souls of humans. Interesting. Leave the focus of your job and spend your time learning how to catch men. So, abandon the visible and embrace the invisible.
We are born naked and helpless and then we start figuring things out. We are trained for independence. We grow up, picking up cues and clues as to how to function independently. We are encouraged to support ourselves, manage obstacles, find security. We figure it out and we "clothe ourselves" with gear and then this Jesus comes along and says, "Come, follow me."
There isn't time to buckle everything up, pack up, get ready in the same manner that we've always gotten ready before. Just come. Drop the nets and go. Don't fold the nets up neatly and stow them for later because the possibility of coming back exists. Surrender. If I was a tiny person, flushed down a swirling toilet, I could not hold onto the sides. I would have to surrender to the whirling and whooshing and simply be taken. Simon and Andrew saw a better opportunity. "At once they left their nets and followed him." (Mark 1:18)
What am I not seeing when I dwell on the visible? As I'm all tangled up in the net, do I have blinders on my eyes? Are my ears tuned and ready to hear the "come" or am I off on bunny trails, lost and without heavenly focus? If Jesus sent me an email and said, "I shall meet you at the park at 6:00 am on Friday and we'll go," would I be sad to leave this earth more than I'd rejoice at going HOME?
