Whew! What a fun ride. 11 Christmas parties later and I’m still here. That was the craziest Christmas ever. The snow came a little too late for a White Christmas! We are now catching up on some household chores and trying to get back to regular life. April sent us pictures from her Christmas. I am going to send them out to everyone who helped out in the process, what a blessing it was to be part of that!
Here’s what I want to talk about today: Luke 5:1-7 (NIV) -
“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.”
These verses have been extremely helpful throughout the last week or so for me and here’s why:
When we went to help April, we raised $850 from our awesome friends to give to her (think of the money as the fish in the story). We didn’t want to give April cash money, so we wanted to buy her like a Visa gift card she could use anywhere. Well, they don’t sell them in increments of $850 so we had to buy (8) $100 gift cards, each with a $5.95 charge on them…which is about $48 total of charges. Now, we could have flipped out over this and gotten really bummed about it, or we could have still been happy that we were able to bless her with $800. Remember, think about the fish. If the disciples focused only on the fish and how 48 of the total 850 flipped out of the nets because they were so full, we would think the disciples were stupid, but this is exactly what we do every day. In Luke 5:6, it says that their nets began to break, which means that they could have focused on how the nets were about to break and how they would have to buy new nets and how the boat is about to sink and then they would have to pull the boat out from underneath the water and then get all the water out….or….they could focus on the fact that they worked all day and got no fish but now at the end of their day, they have so much fish that their nets are full. That’s a lot of money to a fisherman! Who cares if the nets break and/or the boat sinks a little! You are blessed like crazy!
This helped when I thought about the 11 Christmas parties we had to go to. I am blessed that all of my family is alive and that I get to see them. I am blessed that we have a working vehicle to drive us from Toledo to Kalamazoo to see family that we don’t see very often. I am UBER blessed to have a Prius that got us 40 mpg the whole way going 80 mph! I am blessed to still be in one piece and to have not gotten in an accident during the 300+ miles we drove in 18 hours. I am blessed that we have so many friends and family that loves us, that we get to have 11 Christmas parties when there are people who don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with. I am SUPER blessed to have a wife that I get to spend every moment of Christmas with. And I am blessed beyond belief to understand the meaning of Christmas and to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus, who came at just the right time for all of us sinners to die for us, so that we can be friends with God forever. Thank you God!!!
So today, count your blessings, focus on the fish, not the nets breaking or the boat sinking. If you are reading this, then chances are that you have some sort of computer or phone and that is something to be grateful for.
