Savoring the Word 03 - Luke 5:1-11 - Epic Fail

I took a picture a few months ago of the results of this window - a pretty ugly scar on my hand. I wish there was a great story behind it but it just came out of me trying to push open a stick window and pushing not on the cross pieces but instead right on the single pane glass. Maybe not an #epicfail but definitely a #windowfail.

There's a lot I can choose from in my life but there are a lot of #epicfails I could bring up as I think about the epic fails of the fishermen in the passage this week from Luke. The three of them were out all night and caught nothing. How often does that happen? Seems like it would be pretty unusual for people who do this for a living. Again probably not an "epic" fail but...

There's a message in this that I've been hearing all week. There's so much about success, your best life now, being great and so forth and there's not a lot about failure. Yet we all probably fail more than we succeed in life. And the question of course is what happens with those failures.

In the passage this week, Jesus gets into the empty boat and tells them to drop their nets again - but in a slightly different way...on the other side. Fish in Jesus' way not just the ways that we have been doing it.

Now Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing around him to hear the word of God. He saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which was Simonʼs, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets started to tear. So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were about to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesusʼ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For Peter and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so were James and John, Zebedeeʼs sons, who were Simonʼs business partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” So when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Also, I couldn't resist adding this in as well...