RETURN BACK AND TRY AGAIN
By Abraham Oludolapo
I had just returned from the farm where
we did some sorting (grading) of fish. We used a drag net and
I must confess it wasn’t funny at all. Though I was not
the person who did the net dragging, my body still aches and is
in serious pain. This brings to mind Apostle Peter’s encounter
with the LORD Jesus at the lake of Gennesaret. Peter according
to scripture was a fisherman who had toiled all night but didn’t
catch anything. It is not funny for a fisherman with a family
depending on him to fish all night with nothing to show for it.
There are significant things in this story that I will like us
to examine together for our eternal benefits:
He was washing his net:
As a person in the fishing industry, I know
that no fisherman will attempt to wash his net if he hadn’t
made up his mind to stop the day’s work. This is so because
it’s not an easy task to wash the net as it would have gotten
entangled with tree twigs, roots, leaves and other dirts and in
doing a thorough work of washing, all the dirt must be removed.
So, for Mr. Peter to be washing his net signififies a total loss
of hope in taking anything home.
Are you in such a situation where you’ve already written
your resignation letter, you’ve already filed for divorce,
you’ve concluded you can’t succeed academically so
you’re quitting school. Before you finally make up your
mind to quit, Iwant you to read this story to the end.
He met Jesus:
“And he (Jesus) entered into one of the ships and he
prayed him that he would thrust out a little”
What an affront, this is ridiculous, how can somebody
have the boldness to get into my ship without my permission and
still ask me to push it on for him, I suppose this should have
crossed the mind of Mr. Peter but alas he didn’t say anything
or betray any emotion he just complied. Maybe his sorrow of heart
was too much to bother about the ship or he had termed the ship
cursed for it didn’t bring him any luck in his fishing expedition
that night. Were it to be some of us we would have displayed untold
anger and betray our emotions but not Peter.
Remember at this point in time Peter must have been
suffering from some pain, aches, bruises and cold yet he waited
so as to allow Mr. Preacher attend to his crowd. He didn’t
become jealous that this man is succeeding in his own venture
while he (Peter) is a failure so to say.
The Instruction
After the preaching, the unbelievable happened, the
preacher seemed to have known so much about fishing that he ordered
Peter to cast his net into the deep. If I were Peter probably
I would have lectured Mr. Preacher that 'look I’ve been
in business for many years and by experience fishes are caught
more at night than in the day but not Mr. Peter, he just complied'.
Let’s look at that statement
According to Fisheries science, the deep is a dark
place, the pressure is very high in the deep and there is little
food substances which invariably means that you can’t get
many fish there, yet the place of impossibility is where my master
asked Peter to search for a miracle. I could imagine Mr Peter
looking at the preacher and saying to himself 'if this man really
knows what fishing entails he won’t ask me to cast my net
into the deep'. But he didn’t argue he just looked at him
and gently explained to him 'master, we have toiled all night,
and have taken nothing,' this statement is loaded with extraordinary
meaning in a way.
By calling Jesus master, Peter was surrendering everything
to Jesus. By saying master he was simply saying, you are able,
you are more than me and you know more than me, master you are
dependable, master, you are reliable, master you know what you
are saying, master you are the LORD of the universe master despite
my past failures, just a word from you will change my destiny
forever, master irrespective of the situation I will hold on to
the word from your lips.
Faith + Obedience =Result
It is important to note that Peter took a risk at
this point and that is what faith entails, if he dare cast his
net and fail to catch anything again remember he’ll have
to wash his net the second time, moreso, Mrs. Peter and the rest
of the household must have been waiting and getting worried by
now.