Fishing for People

I spent summer in Bristol Bay, Alaska, a world renowned salmon fishing area littered with canneries, wildlife preserves, and the occasional Sarah Palin sighting.  During my time in Alaska, I was just a measly cannery processor; the boats came in loaded with thousands of pounds of salmon, they were unloaded and I processed them into cans, fillets and other seafood items. I made the fish useable, edible; I diced them up, added salt, flipped and flung salmon for six long weeks.

While I was there, during the long and weary sixteen hour days at work, my mind often drifted to the gospel of Jesus. I recalled the different stories of him and his disciples fishing, casting their nets, receiving miraculous amounts of fish. Fishing, the sea, boats are major components to the gospel and the most famous disciples were full-time fishermen.

Then specifically I recall the story of Jesus calling some of these first disciples at the end of Matthew 4. He's walking along the Sea of Galilee and he calls out to Peter and Andrew to drop their nets and to follow him. He tells them to stop fishing for fish, and start fishing for people.

Any good fisherman knows that in order to catch fish, you have to go to where the fish are. In Alaska, the place to be is at the mouth of the river. The salmon desperately try to swim upstream, their final act of life being to fertilize the egg and continue the species. Fishermen line the mouth because they know that there are fish to be caught there. In order to be effective fishers of people, we need to be where the people are. And just as the salmon are eager to swim upstream in search of life, so are thousands of people, searching for truth, purpose and identity. You just have to be there, nets out ready to catch.

I also find it interesting that Jesus didn't call the disciples to process the people. I spent my summer altering the fish, processing them, changing them into what the corporation I worked for wanted them to be. A lot of the time Christians are guilty of trying to process people. We feel responsible for changing them, for slicing them up, putting them on Christian conveyor belts, salting them and finally stuffing them in a can of Christendom. We go to where the people are, in all different cultures and niches in America and all around the world and try and change them and make them like us. When they don't respond, or worst leave our nets we get discouraged, we get angry and cynical. But we were never called to be processors, we were called to be fishermen.

As Christians, Jesus commanded us to go and prayerfully cast our nets in situations and environments where there are people and then bring the catch to him. He is the one in charge of conviction, and of heart change. I'm learning to cast my nets where there are eager people, and then call on Jesus to process hearts and mold disciples. No doubt we are called to teach people the commands of Jesus and train them in biblical principle (Matthew 28:20), and we need to be diligent and effective in doing that. Ultimately e are just vessels and in the end the he is the only one that can change lives, fulfill needs and heal hurts. I challenge you to cast your nets, spend time in places where there are people to be caught and always be pray for Jesus to intervene and catalyze change.