Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
September 14, 2008
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:19-20
On the Waterfront
Fishing wasn’t so good that day perhaps, but that was no reason to give it up. There had been lots of bad fishing days before, so they just kept on working at it. They became so engaged in casting their nets from the boat that Andy and his brother took little notice of a man strolling along the waterfront. Little did they know how this stranger was going to change their lives—that is until He spoke to them.
Andy was a sensitive man, caring, and in search of the Lord and ways to serve him. When he could, he took time from his fishing business to travel several miles to hear the words of a notable orator. It was there he found what he had been searching for. Only the orator saw him first proclaiming, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And the first thing Andy did was to run find Simon, his brother, to tell him, “We have found the Messiah.” [1]
Days had passed since that discovery, but then in the midst of a hard day’s work, there stood the Lamb of God calling to Andy and his brother. Much of his life he had been in search of the Messiah, but he would never have imagined that the Messiah would come searching for him! After all he was just a fisherman. But there were to be other surprises in store that Andy could have never imagined.
Andy could never have imagined that one day in the midst of a large crowd he would find a young boy with five loaves and a few fish that would feed thousands. He could never have imagined that he would witness the Messiah’s death and resurrection. And he could not have imagined that one day he would become a vessel of light calling thousands to follow the Messiah. And it all began with an invitation on the waterfront.
That was their workplace. Jesus approached these two ordinary men on the waterfront with an invitation to follow him. And the workplace is a likely setting for him to extend invitations to us. Whether we are fishermen, or dishwashers, or presidents of large enterprises, Jesus comes to our workplaces with invitations to follow him. He does not call us to change who we are and seldom to walk away from our trades. He simply invites us to allow his light to shine through our daily lives.
And when we follow him, there are surprises in store we can never imagine.
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard Ì
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