“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ ‘Master,’ Simon replied, ‘we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.’” (Luke 5:4-5 CSB)
Devotional
That is exactly the kind of instruction that makes no sense if you actually know what you are doing.
Simon has been fishing all night. He knows these waters, he knows the habits of the fish, he knows that daylight is the wrong time to try again. So when Jesus, a carpenter by trade, tells him to push out into deep water and drop the nets, Simon has every professional reason to say no. He has already done the work. He already has the result. Nothing.
What gets me about his answer is that he does not pretend the night made sense or that he suddenly feels hopeful. “We’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing.” He says the hard part out loud first. He is not hiding his exhaustion or his disappointment to sound more spiritual. He names it plainly, and then he adds the sentence that changes everything: but if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.
That is not blind optimism. It is obedience that happens in spite of the evidence, not because the evidence changed. I think we sometimes wait to obey until we feel ready again, until the tiredness lifts or the discouragement fades. Simon does not wait for that. He is still tired. He is probably still doubting this will work. He obeys anyway, because of who is asking, not because the odds have suddenly improved.
I want to be honest that this is hard to actually live out. Most of the time when I have tried something and it has not worked, my instinct is to stop trying that particular thing, not to try it again at the worst possible hour. But Jesus does not usually ask us to do something new. He often asks us to go back to the same water, at the wrong time, one more time, simply because he said so.
Reflection
I can think of something I already tried and gave up on because it did not work the first time. I wonder if God is asking me to let the nets down again, not because my strategy suddenly got better, but because it is about his timing and he is the one asking. I want to obey before the outcome makes sense, not after.
Prayer
Father, we get tired after a night of nothing, and it is hard to try again when we cannot see the point. Thank you that obedience does not depend on us feeling ready or confident. Give us the willingness to let the nets down again simply because you asked, even when it does not make sense yet. Meet us in the deep water the way you met Simon.