The Greatest Catch

Jesus met Peter and the boys on the shore of the lake after a poor day of fishing. They had tried everything they knew to get a few fish to make a living for themselves. Along comes Jesus, a carpenter-turned-traveling preacher. Carpenters don't usually know a whole lot about commercial fishing unless of course they are from Alaska and you need many trades in order to make ends meet. But these guys are not , they were born into their trades and they would pass the family business on tho their sons after them also. So along comes the non-fishing carpenter Jesus and he tells these life-long wave warriors what
they need to do to catch a load of fish. If I were with Peter and the boys, I'm not sure how I would have responded, but they listened to Jesus because He was different; different than anyone they had ever met before. Reluctantly but obediently they rowed out into the deep water (not a great place to catch fish that usually run close to the shore) and threw out their nets AGAIN. This time it was all different. They caught the biggest catch of their lives!

To me this is not the most amazing part of the story. We all know that Jesus is different, that He is God and can do anything. We know that He can make a bunch of fish swim into a fisherman's net because He's God and he does "God-stuff" all the time. What is amazing to me is the response of the Disciples, these guys are not "God-men" they are just men like me. They are concerned about their future, their families, their children, how they will pay their taxes and rent and food. They are filled with the same concerns of life that I am and yet... The very provision that they needed to pay the bills etc., Jesus had just provided. But they left it all. They had just landed the biggest deal (catch) of their lives and yet at one word from Jesus they walked away from it all for the promise of the unknown. "Unknown?" Not really. They knew that they would be with Him, His presence was all the security they needed. They just walked away from the biggest catch of their lives to follow Jesus. It says in Luke 5:21 that they "left everything and followed Jesus." It seems that when you are in God's will and following Jesus that provision is not a problem. So, what really was the greatest catch? 

---