Good Shepherd Lutheran

When we obey Jesus, blessings always follow, but sometimes obedience isn’t easy. Sometimes, Jesus asks us to do things that seem totally illogical. In Luke 5:4 it says: “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’”
Stop for a minute and just think about what Jesus was asking. Simon was a fisherman. Jesus was just a carpenter. Guess who should know more about fishing? And Simon had already been fishing all night long and hadn’t caught a thing and now it’s probably near the middle of the day. The one thing every good fisherman knows is that the middle of the day is one of the worst times to fish because the fish retreat to their cool hiding places under rocks and logs. So, as far as Simon was concerned, if they didn’t catch anything last night, they definitely wouldn’t catch anything in the middle of the day.
Even worse, Simon had just finished cleaning his nets to get them ready for fishing later. If he dropped them in the lake right now, he’d have to clean them all over again in order to fish that night.
Jesus asking Simon to drop the nets didn’t make any sense at all to Simon. It just seemed like it would make more work for him. But look what Simon says in Luke 5:5: “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Talk about faith! Even though Simon knows Jesus’ request doesn’t make any logical sense, he obeys Jesus anyway.
Even when things don’t make sense, when God speaks to us through His Word, we need to obey. Obedience to Christ’s command always results in divine blessing. Simon’s blessing was a boatload of fish. So many, in fact, that the nets were about to break!
God also told Noah to build an ark because a flood was coming, even though nobody had ever even heard of rain back then. But Noah did it and his whole family was saved.
God called Abraham to pack up his possessions and start walking, even though he didn’t have any idea where he was going, and Abraham did it and he became the father of the people of Israel.
God told the people of Israel to march around Jericho for seven days if they wanted the walls to fall down, and they did it, even though they didn’t understand how that could possibly work. But the walls fell, and they were victorious!
When God tells you to do something, even if it doesn’t make sense, you need to do it. God wants to give us everything. But in exchange, we have to be willing to give him everything. So, just do it!