Movement and Success

Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." Luke 5:5

We all want to be successful at something. Whether it's raising a family, having a strong marriage, playing a sport, or developing a career, success is what we strive for.

However, we as Christians are called to more than just worldly success.

Take this story from the beginning of Jesus' ministry.  Although Simon is who we hear from, there is actually a group of fishermen near where Jesus is speaking. First, Jesus borrows Simon's boat, while he and the other fishermen are cleaning their nets. One Jesus is done speaking to the crowd, He tells Simon to go out to where the water is deeper and let down the nets.

Simon tells Jesus that they had been working all night, and failed to catch anything...but then he agrees to give it one more try, because "Jesus said so."

This act of obedience leads to the biggest catch the fishermen had ever experienced. "When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break."

Listening to Jesus' guidance resulted in success. But that is not where these men stopped.

Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Luke 5:10-11

After the biggest success they ever had, they left everything behind and followed Jesus.

I felt God speak two things into my heart through these verses:

• Even if we experience success while folliwng Jesus, He may ask us to move on to something greater. Just because your career is successful, it does not mean God will never call you to something else. For example, in our church leadership, we have a former personal trainer, banker, and school teacher, just to name a few. Imagine what they would have missed out on if they had decided to stay where they were, verses following God's invitation.
• We are not called to stand still. We are called to follow Jesus. If we stay where we are just because it's always worked, we will miss the greater things God wanted us to experience.We may be lead to go somewhere new, or stay where we are but go deeper into the connections that we have.  As God calls us to move, we should move to keep growing in Christ.

No matter what we do in life, we have a call to reach out to people.