Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Peace versus risk

Imagine a beautiful moment out on a peaceful lake. No murmuring of persons from your work about your work. No screaming kids, barking dogs, yaking yakkers. Peace. Maybe even a drip of fog as the morning sun rises above your tranquility.

Peter, bored, tired, worried, scared perhaps, wanted such a morning. Jesus had died, been buried and Peter's dreams had gone into the tomb with him. So, Peter decided to do what Peter does or did before the young Nazarene came into is life: he went fishing on Lake Tiberius (or as most of us know it today, the Sea of Galilee).

While there, he had one of those mornings. He was full of peace, though his nets were not full of fish. He understood this life. He knew what and how to do the next right thing when he was fishing.

But no fish. And it was noticeable. at least to a young man who hollered at the boat of fishermen, "young men, haven't you caught anything?" The man told them to throw their nets on the right side of the board and they would catch some. The men did. And like it had happened once before, suddenly they had fish.

Long story short, Peter recognized Jesus, the risen Lord, and flopped his way out of the boat and onto shore to have some breakfast with him.

My point is this: Sometimes even our greatest ministry ideas go belly-up. We fail. We risked and we were turned away. The question then becomes what to do next? Do we go back to what we knew before we risked everything? Or do we look for the young Galilean on the beach to restore us and prep us for new ministry, new ideas, new disciples?

The question comes up weekly, doesn't it?

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