Have you ever done all you knew to do and still came up short? It wasn’t a lack of effort that put you in the position. We were trying to raise money once for a mission trip. We decided to sell BBQ plates. After all the plates had sold and people quit coming by, I started calling car dealerships to sell more because we had several briskets left over. We couldn’t sell them no matter what we did. While in church the next day, I had the idea to cut them in 1-3 pound chunks, wrap them up and sell for donations after church. As we were wrapping, we realized how much we truly had leftover. As people left church, they grabbed chunks and dropped off checks. We made more on those chunks than from the plates we had sold.
In Luke 5, Jesus was teaching a crowd on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. There were fishermen nearby cleaning their nets from fishing all night. Jesus asked if they could take the boat out a bit so He could teach from it. When He finished teaching, He told Peter, the boat owner, to go out to deeper water. Then He told him to let his nets down. Peter explained how he was an expert fisherman, how they had fished all night long and caught nothing. I’m sure he was a bit frustrated with the request because he was the expert and had done all he knew to do, but still came up empty. What he was about to find out is when you combine obedience with God’s timing, provision follows.
Luke 5:5 says, “‘Master,’ Simon replied, ‘we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again’” (NLT). Even though it didn’t make sense, and he was exhausted, he still obeyed. His empty nets weren’t the failure he thought they were. They were an invitation for a divine appointment of God’s intervention. I want to encourage you today if you pushed through the night and still come up empty, ask God what you need to do to fill your net. Peter obeyed because it was Jesus who said to do if. God then turned the supernatural provision into a pivot point in Peter’s life. That act of obedience positioned him for the life he was created to live.
Photo by Shakib Uzzaman on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 