The Nets Were Empty. He Told Us to Throw Them Anyway.
What a blanket, a box of frozen fish, and a bag of salmon taught us about obedience without evidence.
Last week we gathered again on Tuesday night for our weekly prayer meeting. Same as always: we pause, surrender to Jesus, and pray specifically for the harvest.
Jim opened his Bible and felt led to read Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus calls the disciples while they’re out fishing. Everyone in the room had heard the story before, and we engaged in prayer in response to what we read as we usually do.
But the phrase “put down the nets” grabbed me.
It reminded me of a pattern I’ve experienced before. When God speaks and echoes something from His word and our history with Him, it’s our job to pay attention.
The Nets Are Empty
Jesus called Peter while he was at work, doing what he did every day. Peter had fished all night and caught nothing. What was in front of him told him there were no fish. His experience in that particular spot and a history of long nights as a fisherman told him that day was a bust.
But Jesus told him something different. It was not based on what Peter could see, but on Jesus’ authority.
For Peter, faith wasn’t pretending the nets were full. Faith was putting down the nets when Jesus told him to. Peter did.
The First Sign
Years ago, God spoke to our family from this same story and passge. As I read it in 2019, I couldn’t get past how Peter trusted Jesus and took a step of faith.
We responded. We began sharing the gospel and praying all around our apartments. God began to move as we obeyed.
That same week we read Luke 5, a neighbor gave our twin boys (who were about two then) a blanket she’d made. I saw it from a distance as my wife held it up and zeroed in on the pattern.
It was covered in fish. We thought of Luke 5 right away.
The Second Sign
The meaning behind the fish and men’s response in Luke 5 had impacted us already, but God wasn’t done speaking.
A few days later, while we were still pondering this, a Pakistani neighbor knocked on our door. He was standing there with a box of over 100 frozen tilapia smiling at us.
Our neighbor told us it was all for us and he refused our offers to reimburse him. He wanted to give us a gift we had not asked for. In that moment, we were shocked on multiple levels.
We can’t prove to you that God was speaking through those gifts. But both Megan and I received them as a personal reminder of what He had already been saying through Luke 5.
We weren’t looking for signs. We were simply grateful that God seemed to be strengthening our faith.
The Next Sign
Back in Queens, sitting in that prayer meeting last week, Jim read Luke 5 and that old story came back to me. And with it, an echo here in the city. One of the disciples in our network here works at a sushi restaurant, cutting salmon every day. Recently he brought two bags of salmon, one for Jim’s family, one for mine. Expensive bags of fish worth hundreds of dollars. Nothing we’d paid for or earned.
I was reminded of how Peter received his catch: by being available and quick to obey.
We often judge the harvest by what we see. If the nets look empty, if there have been no responses, we assume the doors are closed. Everybody’s busy. Everybody’s indifferent. Nothing’s happening.
But the question isn’t whether an opportunity looks promising. The question is whether Jesus is asking you to throw down the net.
Availability matters more than ability. Peter wasn’t picked because he was a good fisherman. He was picked because he was obedient.
God has graciously given us two seasons now of signs of “the big catch” out there. He doesn’t need to show us any more. Message received.
Looking back now, I don’t see the fish as the point. The point was trust.
God was (and is) patiently teaching us not to evaluate the harvest by what we can see. The empty nets don’t mean Jesus has stopped working.
God fills the net. That’s not our job. Our job is to pray, to be willing to go, to share, to obey. He brings the conviction. He prepares the hearts. He saves people and multiplies disciples.
Listen And Obey
Jesus may be asking you to text a friend, start a study, pray for a neighbor, share the gospel. He may be asking you to knock on one more door, or go back to someone who wasn’t ready months ago.
None of this guarantees fruit. It just tells you what’s your job and what’s His.
My job is to stay close enough to Jesus to hear his voice, and to put down the nets when he tells me to. Whatever fish we catch is up to him.
Upcoming: “4 Questions to Get Started Making Disciples”
(Wednesday, August 19th at 3PM ET).
Use four simple questions to choose one person, start one conversation, and plan next steps.