Fishing Together

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

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

6When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So 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." Luke 5:4-7

I was reading a book last night, and came across this verse and read it a few times. Then this morning, I was still thinking about this verse, so I decided to look it up in a few versions to see how it read in other versions. This is one of those that doesn't change a whole lot from version to version. This little story in Luke is about when Jesus first called Simon (Peter) to follow him, and these few verses are so full of meaning, I guess maybe I just didn't really look at it before. In the Bible the act of fishing is frequently used to represent catching up people for Jesus. And once again, that is what is going on here.

Simon followed Jesus' directions and even though he hadn't caught anything all night long, but as soon as he heard the voice of Jesus give him direction, he followed it and cast his nets, and then he caught fish. I cannot help but think that this is talking about "the church". So many churches are working long into the night (metaphorically), but not seeing any results. The problem is that they are relying on man and not listening to what Jesus has to say to them. But when they tune in, when they listen and follow His direction, the results are more than they could have imagined possible. I also notice that there was no discussion... no questioning of Jesus' directions, and no discussion with the other people on the boat as to whether or not to do as he said. They simply did it, no questions asked and were rewarded for their faith.

But the real nugget here in today's verses is in verse seven.

"So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them..." This right here tells us that churches of today are not doing what they are supposed to. In general, we spend our time recruiting and advertising and trying to get people to come to our church versus the other churches in town. It's almost a competition, and we gaze wistfully across the road at all the people going into that church and wonder how we can get some of them to come to our church. When in fact, instead of being competitors, we should be partners. We should be calling on each other to help. When our seats are overflowing and our congregation swelling, our first thoughts are to add services, add onto our building, or build something new. Instead, we should be calling on our other partners in Christ to help, we should be calling to our partners to come join with us, and fill their nets as well. We should be working together for the same goal, that of winning souls for Jesus. This isn't to say that our churches should be the same, they were, after all, different boats, but there should be a willingness to share, not a desire to hoard and keep the blessings of God all to ourselves.

We should be fishing together. And when we hear that someone is attending a church, the first things out of our mouth should not be about how much better our church is, but how great it is that they've found a church to go to. We all have a common goal, a common purpose, and I just can't help but think that it's time to set aside our differences and work together for those goals and purposes. We should be building each other up, not trying to tear each other down for our own benefit.