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Dec 11, 2022 06:00am

Fishing Where the Fish Are

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During the summer, my wife and I tried a new adventure. Although we like to fish, we had never hired a professional guide to take us out on an unfamiliar lake. I saw an ad so we decided to give it a try.

As we left the dock, he asked me If I had ever fished using an electronic fish finder; I hadn’t. He explained that on a huge lake, it was the only way we would ever find where fish were located. He said, “you only catch fish if you are fishing where the fish are”. You can fish all day where there are no fish and come up empty. Made perfect sense to me.

After we checked out several spots, he excitedly told me to look at the screen on the fish finder. Sure enough, it showed what he said were fish. He said they were swimming at about 18 feet deep on the left side of the boat. So my odds of catching fish would increase if I let my bait down about 18 feet on that side of the boat.

Pretty quickly, I learned the wisdom of concentrating my fishing time on places where the fish were located. It didn’t work every time, but it sure beat fishing randomly.

We see a similar story in the Bible.

A FISH STORY
A group of Jesus’ disciples went fishing one night and caught nothing at all. As morning dawned, they saw a man standing on the shore but couldn’t see who He was. The man asked if they had caught anything. They were in no mood for small talk, so they just said “No”. Then the man told them to throw their nets on the right side of the boat, and they would catch some.

That made no sense. It was customary in those days to fish on the left side of the boat as it made it easier to haul in the nets. What difference could a few yards make anyway? Who did this guy think he was, telling these professional fishermen where to fish?

Actually He thought He was Jesus, and indeed He was.
When the disciples did as He told them, a miraculous thing happened. Not only did they catch fish, but they caught more fish than they could haul in. I guess Jesus didn’t need a fish finder.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY
So what is the moral of this story? Actually I see four:
1.The disciples had to do what Jesus said or nothing would have happened. He said to fish on the right side, so they had to fish on the right side. That seems like a small thing, but the moral is to never underestimate the importance of small acts of obedience.

2. The disciples learned faith and trust from this interaction with Jesus. Even when it made no sense, they could trust his guidance. He told them they would catch fish on the right side of the boat, and when Jesus says something, it’s a done deal. The moral is that we can trust Jesus in all things.

3. Catching fish is one thing. Catching more than you can haul in, after unsuccessfully fishing all night, is quite another. This is nothing short of a miracle. From the moment of His conception to the moment of His resurrection, Jesus’ entire being embodied the miraculous, and that has not changed. The moral is that Jesus can and does still do the miraculous.
4. The disciples caught no fish until they fished in the right place. I don’t know whether the fish were there all along or not, but I do know that when they fished in the right place, they caught fish. I can personally testify to the importance of fishing in the right place. So what’s the moral of that part of the story?
Well, if you are not a believer in Jesus as your Savior, you will always be fishing in the wrong place. You will never benefit from the guidance of Jesus, like these fishermen did. It simply won’t be available. You will never have the blessing of knowing you can always trust God. Without faith in Jesus, you will never experience His miracles.

If you are not sure of your relationship with Jesus, I ask you to stop reading now and make a step in Jesus’ direction. If you don’t have anyone who can help you, I suggest you turn to your friends at Lifeword.org for that help.

If you are a follower of Jesus, I remind you of our directive as spoken by Jesus:
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Jesus left no wiggle room In his instruction that we reach outward and carry the gospel message into a world that badly needs to hear it. I believe a big part of why we and our churches are not having the impact and influence we desire is because many of us have stepped back from that directive. If we are not taking that message consistently beyond the four walls of our churches, we are not fishing in the right place. If we want to see the dynamic power of the early Church unleashed in our churches today, we have to move outward.

We live in a huge lake of people headed toward an eternity separated from God. We have an obligation and privilege to reach those people with His message. Certainly that happens within our churches, but our odds increase substantially when we take the message to them, instead of hoping they will come to us.

We will only catch fish if we are fishing where the fish are.
Maybe it’s time we throw our nets on the other side of the boat.