Expecting a Call?
Most of us know the feeling of waiting for an important call. We keep checking the phone, peering at the screen, listening out for the ringtone. We’ve had a health check-up or a job interview - will it be good news or bad news? Or awaiting news of a new-born in the family – will it be a boy or a girl? Some calls change the course of our lives.
Simon was usually busy by the Sea of Galilee with his tangled nets with their tricky knots, and the flapping fish with the familiar smell of hard work and haddock! However, this morning, no doubt frustrated and fed-up after a long night catching absolutely nothing, the course of Simon’s life was about to change. Jesus steps into Simon’s boat, steps into his business, and steps into his life. And on those shores came the unexpected call: “Come, Follow me.”
What is remarkable is not so much that Peter followed, but that Jesus called him at all. After all, what could Jesus want with this failed fisherman? To be honest, what could Jesus want with any of us? Surely, he could do everything he does without us. He could preach without preachers, heal without helpers, and feed the hungry without fumbling fishermen and bumbling believers. Yet again and again, God chooses partnership over perfection and calls ordinary messy people into His extraordinary divine purposes.
But why? Because God is not merely interested in getting a job done. He is interested in growing His children in relationship with Him and with one another. The call is not only about usefulness, but about transformation. Fishermen become fishers of men, doubters develop as disciples, blunderers and bruisers (such as Simon) become builders in God’s Kingdom.
Simon’s story reminds us that God often calls us in the commonplace: at work, at home, amid washing or casting of nets. Sometimes His call comes on the heels of failure. The miraculous catch happened only after Peter admitted emptiness. Pride must be put in its place so that the nets can be cast and filled. And as Simon saw the sinking boats, burdened by the weight of the catch, he sank to his knees, burdened by his own sinfulness before Jesus. (See Matthew 4:18-20 & Luke 5:1-11)
Maybe, the question is not, “Am I expecting a call?” but, “Am I listening for His voice?” For the same Saviour still calls ordinary sinful people today, delighting to work through them.
Revd Michael Hogg