I know I can’t be the only one who was like this, but growing up I RARELY listened to my parents. Disobedience should have been my middle name instead of Elizabeth. When they would tell me not to do something, I would promptly go ahead and do it anyway. When they would tell me to do something, that’s when I chose to not do it.
In these acts of disobedience, my parents were not happy with me.
And in return, I usually ended up with a punishment, or I ended up hurt.
There was one time that I remember very clearly for some reason; maybe because I still bear the scar of my defiance.
Every summer growing up, my family would go camping for a week or two. We would pack up the pop-up trailer and the family minivan with rarely-bought-on-any-other-occasion-except-for-camping snacks, boxes full of summer reading list books, and beach toys.
We would leave early in the morning and drive for hours, my parents tuning out the orchestra of complaining coming from the backseat, asking “when are we gonna be there?” and “I have to go to the bathroom!”.
You know, the usual stuff that no family camping trip can go without.
The moment we’d pull into the campsite, my sister and I would fling the van door open and impatiently scamper around waiting for Mom and Dad to unload everything and begin setting up.
The first thing we would ask for was always, ALWAYS our bikes. And year after year, we would spend long lengths of time biking around the campground and scoping out our fellow campers – just to, you know, confirm that we had the better setup at our campsite. Which we obviously did…
Every time, my mom would remind me that I should wear running shoes while riding my bike, because if I wore sandals my foot could slip off the pedal and I could hurt myself.
And every time, I would ignore her warnings and pedal off sporting my sandals.
Well, like moms usually are, she was right. One evening, I found myself in the back of the van while my dad drove me to the nearby hospital to get my foot stitched up – I had been adventurously “mountain biking” across the jagged rocks along the shore of the lake and my foot had slipped. Right onto one of the jagged rocks. There was a lot of blood.
Like most kids, especially at that wise age of 12 or 13 that I was, I thought I knew everything. I didn’t listen to my parents when they told me not to do something, and I didn’t listen to them when they told me to do something.
This is why we can often relate to the people whose stories are written in the pages of the bible.
They rarely listened to God.
But in one of my favourite stories, there is a man named Simon Peter who did decide to listen.
Luke 5:1-11 illustrates the way we are called to drop everything that we think is important in our lives and follow Jesus. The story goes like this:
“Once when he was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, the crowd was pushing in on him to better hear the Word of God. He noticed two boats tied up. The fishermen had just left them and were out scrubbing their nets. He climbed into the boat that was Simon’s and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Sitting there, using the boat for a pulpit, he taught the crowd.
When he finished teaching, he said to Simon, ‘Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch.’
Simon said, ‘Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.’ It was no sooner said than done – a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.
Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. ‘Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.’ When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee’s sons, coworkers with Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, ‘There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.’ They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.” (Luke 5:1-11, MSG).
In verse 4, Jesus tells Simon Peter to take the boat out to deeper waters and “let the nets out for a catch”.
Jesus isn’t suggesting that maybe if they take the boat out and put their nets in the water then maybe they’ll catch something – He’s commanding them to do this because He’s promising that something will come of it. And in verse 6, He follows through with His promise when they catch so many fish that their nets can’t handle the weight.
I find in my life that I am often too afraid of failure or of the unknown and that usually holds me back from doing things that could end up being very rewarding. A lot of the time this is because of past failures and events in the past that have ended up hurting me or hurting people that I love.
Sometimes these hesitations and fears actually end up causing me to disobey the One who only has my best interests in mind. When He calls me to do something, His intentions are not to hurt me or to repeat the past – His intentions are to actually reveal a little bit more of His character and maybe teach me something too.
We cannot let our fears stop us from obeying His call. I heard a sermon once on this exact topic, and the pastor said something that will stick in my mind forever: “Holding on is believing there is only a past – letting go is knowing there is a future”. When we allow our pasts to hold us back from the fullness of life that God has for us, we are saying that we don’t believe we have a future to look forward to. We’re saying that it’s only our pasts that define us.
Jesus was teaching His disciples a lesson on obedience in this story. When Simon was willing to go ahead and do what Jesus told him to do, he was blessed with a boat full of fish! And what did he do after that? He took his obedience another step forward, dropped his nets and everything he was familiar with, and he followed Christ.
We are often afraid of the unknown. It scares the heck out of us to not always be in the loop of things. But really, God isn’t asking us to know. He’s simply asking us to hold Christ ahead of ourselves to prepare the way. And as a result, we will be filled with such peace in the knowledge that He is in charge of our lives.
What are you holding onto from your past that might be holding you back from obeying Christ?
