Hi Sweet Friends,
When our ladies’ Bible study at church recently read the account of Jesus calling a group of fishermen to be His first disciples, I read something as if for the first time. Though I would have read it countless times, I had no recollection of it affecting me as it did this time. I may have even heard sermons on it or read it elsewhere; but this time, I caught my breath and knew I needed to ponder what God wanted me to catch. It’s found in Luke 5. Jesus had just taught a crowd of listeners standing on shore while he spoke from a borrowed boat in the water. The boat belonged to Peter and his brother Andrew who had been fishing unsuccessfully the night before and were now washing their nets. Jesus tells Peter to cast the nets in deep waters. Most fishing is done close to shore, and Peter tells Jesus they have already tried. I can only assume the fishermen are tired and discouraged and are ready to pack it up and go home, but now something harder was being asked of them. They had no idea that rowing to deeper water and casting their nets was just the beginning of hard asks from Jesus. Nevertheless, Peter accepts the invitation to go to deep waters and cast his nets. The catch was so great that they had to holler at their partners to bring their boat and help. The boats were so full of fish that they risked sinking. Going deeper is never an easy call, and yet it is so often where the miracles take place.
I’ve long held an unspoken and even unrealized belief that those who have suffered should be excused from further suffering. God asking people to join Him in a hard story after they have already lived one is just a little much. Or a lotta much. This is surely reasonable. I obey the rules and God makes life work out for me, right? I endured pain and passed the test with faith in tact, what more could God want? Those exhausted and discouraged shouldn’t then be asked to row into deeper waters, should they? I can just almost smell the smoke from hell all over that one. How about you?
I was deeply affected by a biography about Elisabeth Elliot in the past couple of years. She was one of the missionary widows whose husbands were massacred by the natives in Ecuador that they were trying to reach with the gospel in 1956. Elisabeth continued to serve as a missionary in the field with her young daughter until returning home to be a prolific author and speaker. She married again to a man she deeply loved only to lose him to cancer four short years later. Her third marriage lasted 38 years until her death in 2015. It was finding out about her last marriage that shook me. Unbeknownst to most, except her immediate circle of family and friends, her third husband had a raging temper and obsession with control. Elisabeth continued to write books, was a sought-after speaker, and hosted a radio program. She was every bit the spiritual hero we wanted her to be. And behind the scenes, there was war and pain. I somehow felt betrayed by this information, but I didn’t know by whom. How did that third husband slip through the cracks? Why didn’t God protect her from a hard relationship and hard life? There was no hypocrisy on Elisabeth’s part. She continued to live out and express an abandoned life to God until her death. I just somehow thought that after giving and suffering so much in her younger life, she should be rewarded with comfort and ease and go out in a blaze of glory instead of the pained and troubled life ending in dementia that was her reality. “Faithful in Torment” could have been a chapter title in one of her books.
And what about our faithful hero Joni Eareckson Tada? A quadriplegic from a diving accident at age 17, she has lived her whole adult life in total dependence on the care of others. At age 76, she remains a talented artist, Christian author, sought-after speaker, and heads a ministry to disabled individuals and families through her many camps. I have heard her describe what it takes just to get her in bed ready to sleep for the night. It’s overwhelming. She has had two bouts of cancer and more recently lost what little use she had of her right arm and can no longer feed herself. If life wasn’t hard enough, she now must be fed. There is a long line of people who would be honored to serve her in this way, but don’t miss how humbling it is to have to be cared for. To not be able to wipe your mouth or blow your nose. Just think how often you cry. Nothing is easy. Joni is the first to say that this life is so hard. But I have only heard a few people in my life talk about Jesus the way that she does. She is so obviously in love with Him that to hear her speak of Him, and just to hear her say His name, almost makes me jealous.
I’ll share one more hero of the faith in Corrie Ten Boom. She was a Dutch prisoner of war in German concentration camps during WWII. She and her entire family were imprisoned for hiding Jews in their home to save them from the holocaust. Most of her family died in prison. After the war, Corrie traveled the world giving her testimony of the goodness and greatness of God. Her experience of God was made greater through her suffering. I’ve never heard anyone say the name of Jesus so heartily and meaningfully. She knew Him well. But God wanted her to go to even deeper waters after so great a suffering. One of the cruel guards at the prison camp where Corrie and her sister suffered came to one of her post-war speaking engagements. He told her he had found Christ and asked Corrie to forgive him. As she stared at his offered hand, paralyzed and overrun with memories, she had no desire to forgive him. He deserved no such grace. The flood of release came over her only after she raised her hand to his. First the obedience, and then the miracle. As she shook his hand, she realized she also didn’t deserve the grace of a holy Savior. The freedom from resentment, hate, and unforgiveness came from being willing to go to deeper waters, to do the next hard thing offered to her.
These are just three women that impacted me. They have lived in my lifetime. I view them as heroes. They viewed themselves as humble servants of the living God, honored to do His bidding and make the name of Jesus known. In each story, I would have said early on, “It’s enough. You’re asking too much, God. They’ve already given. Why would you keep asking for more? When is it enough? Why isn’t it enough?” And I think the answer is that I’m looking for the wrong answer. I’m asking the wrong question. I’m measuring with the wrong ruler. The ones who walk the way of Jesus are repeatedly given more opportunities to walk the way of Jesus. To understand the way of sacrifice more deeply is by sacrificing more deeply. Sacrifice is the very heart of Christ. Somehow, the deepest love can only be known in choosing it. Denying self, complete selflessness, everything the world is not is the life of Christ in us. Just when I think I’ve done a good thing or made a hard choice and proven myself selfless, God presents a new thing and a new place to go with Him that just seems too far. And I so don’t want to go. Those waters just feel too deep for my survival. I beg not to go, and the choice is mine. But the hard thing God is asking is Him granting my request to see, to make His thoughts my thoughts and His ways my ways, to know Him, to be like Him, to truly love Him above all else, to give Him His due. There is no final hard thing until graduation. No final door to walk through until the one that opens into His presence. Everything before that is me responding to His offerings and opportunities to go deeper still and be in agreement and alignment with the life of Christ in me. God knows me better than I know myself. Only He knows what is needed to help me shed my skin. And at every request to go deeper, we find Jesus already there, waiting for us to see the miracle.
Which brings us back to our friend Peter. When Jesus asked him to go to deep waters and cast the fishing net again, Peter explains why he doesn’t think it’s necessary. They are valid reasons. He could have refused and stayed status quo. So can we. Or, like Peter, we can accept the invitation with the possibility of looking foolish and hurting more. Peter followed Jesus’ word and his boat almost sank with the blessing. And Peter’s next move is the one that I pray for all of us to take. Peter falls on his face before Jesus and claims his own unworthiness. Jesus tells him to not be afraid and get ready to be a fisher of men. There were many harder and deeper waters coming. Each invitation led do a deeper abandonment by Peter. Sometimes, like us, he failed. And yet, this is on whom Christ built His church. And now it’s our turn. See you in the deep end.
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