Hope on the Other Side

“So, He called out to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” “No,” they answered. He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish.” (John 21: 5-6)

“Cast the net on the right side of the boat.” Jesus always has a different way of seeing things. His plans seem so contrary to what we know or understand, but if we trust Him, our nets will always be full…usually in a different way than we would ever expect.

So often in our lives we do the same things in the same ways while wanting things to change (definition of insanity). Could it be that we are not hearing God say, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat?” Maybe we do hear something, but it seems illogical or unrelated to our desires; or, we have trouble hearing because we are so trapped by the power of our hopelessness. Either way, Jesus always has something new for us; something to give us life, something greater than we could ever ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

Check out this story in John chapter 5:1-6

“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

The man’s answer exposes his limited perspective and profound hopelessness, “I have no one to put me in the water…”

Jesus responds with three simple directives, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.” The man was being invited to “cast the net to the right side” and do something he had never anticipated. To only do one of the commands would not bring about the freedom Jesus had intended for him. He had to do all three.

First, he had to stand up and change his posture. He had to confidently do something he had never done before, by trusting in the one who told him to do it. He had to use legs he had not used in 38 years. He had to risk looking like a fool in front of all those who had been his companions. He had to push through his hopelessness and exercise personal faith.

Jesus also told him to “pick up” his mat. He had to pick up and get rid of what he had depended on for most of his life. He had to clean up the evidence of who he had been. He had to get rid of that which could tempt him to come back when things got hard. He had to acknowledge where he had been in order to move forward into where he was going.

And the last command was to “walk.” That meant moving forward into things that had yet to be, in ways he had never been. All things were new. He would need to get a job. He would have to take on responsibilities and learn to be around healthy people. Jesus knew the man could not walk well without him, so He finds the man, introduces himself, and reminds him to “not to sin anymore.” I believe the man knew what Jesus was talking about. He would need to know Jesus in order to walk out his newfound freedom.

“Do you want to be well?”

How would you answer that question? What are the places in your life where you would respond with the same hopeless “yes” as the lame man? We want it, but honestly, we cannot see how things could ever change. If we say, “no,” nothing changes, and yet saying, “yes,” changes everything. It is a scary thing to not know where that yes could take us.

As much as we hate it, we are very comfortable in our brokenness and pain. There is something secure and known about it. In some ways, it is our faithful companion; a codependent, unhealthy relationship. The uncertainty of letting go can be more frightening than trying to manage what we already know. Most of us are unsure of who we would be without our pain.

Yet Jesus still asks, “Do you want to be well?”

In the Meanwhile…

Let’s be honest with God about our hurts and pain, have the courage to say “yes,” and then stop to listen to what He has to say. We can never predict what He will ask us to do. In fact, most of the time our road to freedom will take turns we would have never anticipated. He will tell us to “cast our nets” in places and ways we have never thought of before and I am convinced that if we keep saying “yes,” He will walk with us to freedom and our nets will be full.