Fishing in an Empty Pond

Suggested Reading: Matthew 4:18-25

One of the things about Stargate SG-1 that always entertained me was the fact that the show never took itself too seriously. That tone was set by a leading character, Jack O'Neill, who loved to go fishing so much that he had a fishing pond installed on his property behind his rustic log cabin home. But because he enjoyed fishing more than he actually enjoyed catching fish, he never had any fish put into the pond. Jack would simply sit there in his lawn chair, with an ice chest full of cold drinks, watching the water and casting his line out every once in a while. I don't think he even used any bait.

When Jesus called the first disciples, he said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19, NIV). That call extends to all of us who have decided to follow Jesus, but sometimes I think we enjoy fishing for men the way Jack O'Neill enjoyed fishing. We like talking about it. We enjoy feeling like we're fishing. We may even enjoy going through the motions just like Jack enjoyed casting out his line. But at the end of the day, we're more interested in fishing for people than in catching people. You can tell because, like Jack, we don't actually go where the fish are. We stay where we are comfortable, where we can feel like we're fishing, where we might catch something if the fish come to us, but we aren't willing to leave our areas of comfort to get to where the fish actually are. 

Jesus was known as a friend of sinners because he went where the sinners were. Jesus went into the homes of the tax collectors and ate with the prostitutes. He hung out with sinners so much that the religious leaders labeled him a drunkard and a glutton (Mathew 11:19). He wasn't. But Jesus didn't fear being labelled by people who claimed to care about others but only actually pushed them away from the kingdom of God (Mathew 23:13-15). Jesus hung out with sinners because he remembered it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick (Mathew 9:12, NIV).

If we want to get serious about fishing for people, we must be willing to go where the fish are. We must be willing to spend time with sinners and hang out with people who don't act like good Christians. And we must be willing to love them the same way Jesus did, accepting them and caring for them without ever condoning or glossing over their sin.

Are we fishing for people in order to catch something or are we just going through the motions? Instead of sitting by an empty pond, casting out lines in vain, let's go where the fish are. Who knows? We might actually catch someone.

Signing God's Non-Disclosure Agreement

Suggested Reading: Romans 11:33-12:2

In the television series Stargate SG-1, the United States Air Force controlled an alien device called a stargate, which was capable of instantaneously transporting people across the galaxy to any other planet which also had a stargate. The program operating the stargate was top-secret.  Several times throughout the course of the series, people were let in on the secret of the stargate but, for reasons of national security, those to whom the secret was revealed always had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, committing to abide by the top-secret status of the operations before anything was revealed to them. If they didn't want to sign the agreement, they received no information about the stargate. Never did they get to know the information and then decide if they wanted to sign the non-disclosure form. It simply didn't work that way.

In many ways, God's will operates like a top-secret government program. In Romans 12:1-2, Paul wrote, "Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge your to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God" (HCSB). Notice that the discerning of God's will comes after offering oneself  as a living sacrifice, after refusing to be conformed and having one's mind transformed. In other words, knowing God's will comes after committing to follow it, in much the same way that the revelation of top-secret government knowledge comes only after one has agreed to treat it as highly secret.

Often we struggle to know the will of God. We want to know what God wants from us and for us and we try to figure out God's plan. But often, if we are honest, we try to figure out God's will for us so that we can know if we want to follow it. That, unfortunately, isn't the way it works. Not only does God not tend to reveal His will to us until we have committed to obeying Him, but most of the time we are incapable of even understanding God's will until we have fully committed ourselves to carry it out.

Do you want to know God's will? Are you struggling with a decision and have been begging God to reveal His will? Offer yourself to God as a living sacrifice. Fully commit yourself to a way of thinking that mirrors what you see in Jesus and to complete obedience no matter where God would have you go or what God would have you do. Then you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.