at your word, I will let down the nets

The Word for today:
Luke 5:1-11

mark this: Luke 5:4-6 --
And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."
And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."
And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.

Sometimes--like right now, for instance--it all gets away from me.

The Bible gets way too big for me. And faith starts to seem like the differential equations that I could never solve in high school; there are just too many variables.

Even Jesus, heart of my own heart, can sometimes seem so deep and so smart and so together that he simply outdistances my intellectual and spiritual grasp.

When I was first a believer, someone gave me one of those rubber bracelets that asked, "What Would Jesus Do?"

I always knew, back then, what Jesus would do. But now, sometimes, I don't have a clue.

When I start to get paralyzed like this, I have a special spot where I go. If you have your Bible open to our passage for today, then you can see my special spot from where you are:
"Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5)

I've heard the life of faith described in so many ways, in too many ways. But the only definition that makes sense to me is this one:
At your word…
Just keep your nose in your Bible!
…I will let down the nets.
To the best of your understanding, just do what it says.

So whenever the life of simple faith begins to elude you, don't forget to come back to this special spot. Odds are, we'll run into each other, 'cause I hang out here a lot.

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