I went fly fishing for the first time this week. I had gone fishing a few times as a kid, but it had been a good while since I had held a fishing rod in my hand. Yet, despite my complete lack of experience and expertise, I had my heart set on catching a beautiful trout. After a brief lesson from my guide, I took the couple of steps out into the river, and started casting… I went fly fishing for the first time this week. I had gone fishing a few times as a kid, but it had been a good while since I had held a fishing rod in my hand. Yet, despite my complete lack of experience and expertise, I had my heart set on catching a beautiful trout. After a brief lesson from my guide, I took the couple of steps out into the river, and started casting…
Three hours later, and I was still casting… and still catching absolutely nothing. I started feeling the frustration bubbling up, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t start feeling tears building up behind my eyes. Something about the constant repetition of cast after cast with absolutely nothing to show for it was weighing on my emotions. I wanted to quit. It felt pointless. Thirty minutes later, and still not even a little nibble, I told my guide I was done and headed for the car, and the tears started flowing. It seems ridiculous to cry about not catching a fish, but I felt so powerless and so helpless out there on the river. I had my heart set on a fish, but it felt like no matter what I did, I just kept coming up empty. It was such a desperate feeling. As I was in the midst of my troutless emotional mess, I thought about how Peter and the other disciples must have felt after fishing ALL DANG NIGHT and catching nothing. I was ready to swear off fishing forever after three hours of catching nothing, and I am an absolutely beginner fisherwoman. Peter was a fisherman by trade… this was his life, his livelihood, his thing he should have been able to be successful at. And yet, hour after hour goes by in the night, and nothing… not even a single fish. Imagine the frustration he must have felt every time he brought up another empty net…the feeling of failure that was inevitably swirling in his head with every empty haul… the feeling of desperation he no doubt was feeling after countless hours of exhausting work with absolutely nothing to show for it. No matter how hard and how long he worked out there on the sea, he continued coming up empty. Can you relate to that feeling? The feeling of pouring your heart and soul into something but it just not working out… the feeling of spending your time and energy on something, but still coming up empty… the feeling of pouring your emotions into something or maybe even someone, but it just doesn’t seem to matter…. Cast after cast, haul after haul, empty. Coming up empty after pouring so much into something is such a desperate, powerless, and helpless feeling. It’s a feeling so heavy that it often leads to throwing the towel in and giving up on that thing forever… But what if that feeling was actually a beautiful gift from God? A gift of Him bringing us to the end of ourselves so that He can realize, oh so tangibly how desperately we are in need of Him. A gift of opening our eyes to see how truly helpless and incapable we are without His hand over our life. A gift of Him stripping us from all of our self sufficiency tendencies and pride, and reminding us that all good gifts come from Him and not ourselves. A gift of showing us that we are completely powerless without Him by our side, and bringing us to a broken point where we are ready to surrender everything to Him… Back to our boy Peter and his friends who had been fishing all night and catching nothing, feeling exhausted, frustrated, and desperate. Take a guess at who shows up in the moment of exasperated human efforts to make it happen… Jesus. “Friends, have you caught any fish?”, Jesus asks from the shoreline. The disciples don’t yet recognize who it is talking to them, but they respond with a simple, “no.” Now tell me, why is Jesus asking this? He’s Jesus. He knows these boys ain’t caught nothing, but I think He is asking the question for their good more than anything. There’s something deeper to that question… its almost as if Jesus is making the disciples admit that their own efforts were fruitless and preparing their hearts for Him to show up in a supernatural and incredible way. It’s like he is saying, “Friends, are you ready to just surrender this and accept you can’t do anything without me,” or “Friends, can you just let me take care of you already and stop trying to do this by your own power…” What if Jesus is asking you the same question in your fruitless pursuits? What is Jesus is standing on the shoreline ready to meet your empty efforts with a miracle? What is Jesus is waiting to show you His supernatural power? After the disciples admitted their empty nets to Jesus, He tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. You don’t think they tried that all night? Of course they did, and I think had Jesus come earlier in the night when the disciples were still trying to catch fish by their own efforts, they probably wouldn’t have listened to Jesus. They would have still had hope to do things their own way, and might have disregarded these seemingly ridiculous orders from some guy on the shore… but because they were desperate and empty and powerless with no other options , they were obedient. And the obedience brought forth a miracle. After casting to the right side after Jesus commands, the net became so heavy with fish that they couldn’t even haul it up! The emptiness from their own efforts brought them to a place of surrender, and the surrender made room for Jesus to show up in a pretty big way. They immediately realize that this was the Lord who was talking to them from the shore, and Peter just can’t help himself. He jumps into the water to run to meet the Lord on the shore. What a beautiful moment… Peter had been working all night and coming up empty, and was no doubt feeling defeated and exhausted and ready to give up. His heart was heavy, and he felt helpless. But when the Lord showed up in the moment of defeat, it changed everything. Instead of continuing in His own desperate attempts to make it happen, He instead chose to run desperately to the man who could. Maybe it’s time we stop sitting in our own emptiness and desperateness, and instead start running desperately to the One who can make things happen. Maybe it’s time we realize we are powerless and helpless by ourselves, and turn our eyes to the One who is all powerful and ready to help. Maybe it’s time we stop trying to make things happen by our own efforts and strength, and instead get on our knees and surrender everything to the Lord and beg Him to show up in our empty situations. Maybe it’s time we realize that Jesus is truly our everything. Back to my fly fishing emotional extravaganza… As I processed my feelings more on the drive home, I realized that the emptiness and frustrations I was feeling from fishing were really much more complex and deep rooted than simply rainbow trout. I had been feeling at a loss with a couple different situations in my life that week, and had been feeling like no matter what I did, it didn’t seem to make a difference. I felt like I had tried for years to make things happen, poured my heart and soul into these citations, and kept coming up empty. And things only seemed to be getting worse… I had been feeling exasperated and hopeless. And that’s why the fishing hit me hard. It was a tangible picture of my soul's struggles. I realized how much I had been trying to will my own outcomes by my own efforts and how exhausted and stressed I was from that, and decided to surrender to the Lord instead. I told him that I had come to the end of myself, and realized I was completely powerless to change these situations and that I needed Him desperately to come through. I admitted my own empty efforts and asked Him to show up in these situations in ways that only He can. And the peace came instantly. I am still waiting to see how God works out miracles in these situations, but I trust that He is. I think He rather likes showing us at times just how awesome and miraculous he is, and I am excited to see what He does in these surrendered situations. But while I wait for Him to work, I have found peace in knowing my place in “fishing” with Him. It’s not my own efforts or own strength that produces heavy hauls of fish. It’s surrendering to Him, understanding I am powerless on my own, being obedient to His calls, and desperately running to Him. Are you exhausted enough from trying by your own efforts to finally surrender and give this situation to Him? Are you desperate and empty enough from perpetually coming up empty to finally realize that you can not do this by your own power but by the Lord’s strength? Are you so close to giving up out of fruitless desperation that you are finally ready to just jump in and instead run desperately to the One who can make something happen? Well, good, because the Lord is ready to receive your surrendered desperate spirit and hopeless heart with wide open arms, and perform miraculous works within your life. What a blessing it is to come to the end of ourselves, where we finally realize our desperate need for the Lord and surrender our situations to Him. It is then, and only then, that the Lord can begin to show up in our hopelessness and emptiness and meet our situations with HIs supernatural, wonder working, miraculous power, and show us just how much He truly can do with surrendered situations, and willing hearts. John 21: 1-10 1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.[a] It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus[b]), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. 6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. 7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. 8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.[c] 9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
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