If God had allowed the apostles to succeed with fishing the fish, they would have missed out on becoming fishers of men…
Sometimes things just do not work out. No matter how hard I try the thing does not smooth out the wrinkles and I cannot just get it right.
And when that happens – when everything feels like it is going wrong and I do not know how to sort things out at all – that is when I feel the most deflated. When that happens in my life, that is when I feel like a failure. And during those times, I can be very hard on myself and very mean to myself.
The other day I was working on something and it just did not come out alright. Nothing seemed to be working according to plan. And as I worked through the problem it seemed as though everything that I wanted to try failed and I was unable to get anything to sort itself out to the end of the project.
And when that happened, and while I was being mean to myself about it, I suddenly – no doubt through the intercession of the Holy Spirit – had a thought…
You see, I am not the only person who failed. Saints Simon Peter and Andrew (and even Saints James and John) were fishermen. In other words, they earned their livelihood by fishing. And that is important to remember. You see, they were men like any others and when they first met Christ they were still trying to earn a living at the only job they knew how to do, which was fishing.
And when you read the accounts in the Gospels, it seems that these men were not very good at catching fish. After all, there are several accounts of the men having fished all night and caught nothing, or of the men sailing out into a storm and getting stuck in the storm and nearly drowning.
And I have been reflecting on that today. You see, it occurs to me that all those times that I thought I was failing, perhaps I was not failing at all. Perhaps, when I thought I was unable to succeed, I was in fact, succeeding very well in the plan that God had devised for me.
After all – those apostles who were fishermen spent an awful lot of time NOT catching fish…
And that makes me think… All those times that I berate myself for my own miserable failures, perhaps I have it all wrong. After all, if God Himself wanted me to succeed, nothing in the universe could stand in His way. And that just means that when I do not succeed at the thing I had planned, in fact I am succeeding in the thing that God has planned for me.
And I have been reflecting on that today, because if God had allowed the apostles to succeed with fishing the fish, they would have missed out on becoming fishers of men…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
Comments