Spiritual Reflection: Fishing and Failure

The Lord challenges the disciples, after being out all night, and catching nothing, and they catch endless fish.

The feeling of failure and exhaustion is part of our lives, we cannot remove it.  Instead, the Christian message is about the recognition of our inability to be great or perform miracles on our own.

 Instead, even in our inadequacies, God asks us to fulfill our vocations, even in our weaknesses:

  

Luke 5:1-11

Jesus Calls His First Disciples (NIV)

5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,^[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ² He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

 

 

Because the talents of the disciples, they were not made to be priests or people who were charismatic, etc.  Jesus called normal people to be the disciples; not the people with most influence.

Even as we, or the disciples, recognize our negativity, our inability, still we are called to be fishers of men.  Great things are possible through the grace of God, but not through our own power.  We need each other, and a new mission will appear to make a good life possible not for the small group of friends or family, but something that is bigger than we can imagine. Even in failure, we rise.