a great catch

These days, in many places, believers feel like the fishermen Peter and his brother Andrew who "were working hard all night and caught nothing at all" (Luke 5:5).  In these contentious days, recovering from the stress of the pandemic, there's lots of hard work going on, fishing for people, but not many seem to be getting "caught" for Jesus.  

But then Jesus tells Peter to "put out into the deeper part" (Luke 5:4).  Tired as he  and his companions are, Peter complies.  I wonder if Jesus is asking us to do the same, to continue our work, but more deeply, trusting in His Presence and His Power more fully.

Jesus does the rest, bringing over a huge school of fish, such that Peter and Andrew call others for help, and He tells an astonished and humbled Peter that he would be catching people from now on (Luke 5:10).  These days, we are not only toiling hard with little apparent success, but Jesus is still fishing for people.  If we look around deeply, there are many signs that a great catch is coming.  In various places, people are jumping up into the arms of Jesus, sometimes in great numbers.  At some point, we will see Jesus bring an unprecedented catch to be hauled in by His disciples.  Will we be ready?  Will we right now call upon other fisher-folk to help us prepare us for revival?