Fishermen
How many of you have struggled with bringing people to church? There was a time when I had 5 friends join me every Wednesday for youth service. It was great to feel like I was having an impact on these people. I loved being able to look around and witness my friends start to build a relationship with Christ. Then boom! They just stop showing up. I get excuse after excuse. Then pretty soon, they've completely reverted to their prior lives. As though the worship services, prayer nights, sermons, and heartfelt talks about what it means to be saved, never happened.
As Christians, it's really difficult to see people that we love and care about fall away from God. I had a tough time understanding why God would let them leave so quickly. It didn't make any sense. Take a look at Matthew 4:19, "And He said to them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." I mean, why would God call us to be "fishers of men" if as soon as I caught some, He'd just let them go?!
This is one of those things that I grew up hearing everywhere, so the impact of it was watered down and I never fully understood. It wasn't until recently (and a conversation with my mom) that I was able to semi-wrap my head around the whole concept.
Fishermen. It's not an easy thing. I've gone fishing before. There have been trips where no one in my family caught a single fish. And there have been times where I've caught 13 fish! I've caught a foot-long catfish, as well as a stick or two. My point is that fishing isn't easy. It requires patience, structure, training, the proper equipment, and a deep understanding that you either get some or none.
The same principle of fish fishing applies to human fishing. Sometimes you think you get a bite and then they swim off. Sometimes you don't get a single bite. But part of being fishermen is that they always end up tossing their line back out. They have faith and hope that they're going to catch something. So should we. We can't get upset or be close-minded if a trip doesn't go as planned.
God calls us to be human fishermen. We have to have faith that even when we miss, we still made an impact and planted a seed. We have to be patient and remember that things don't always work out the way we imagined. We have to make sure that we have structure, are trained, and be properly equipped. The most important thing to remember is that, we have to have an intense passion for bringing people to christ because we’ll be doing it for a very long time. God doesn’t call us to be fishermen during ‘fishing season’. God called us to be fishermen for life.
“Behold, I will send for many fishers, said the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
