Follow Your Dreams?

Peter was a fisherman. I don’t know much about fishing, because I refuse to touch a slimy, wiggling, gasping for air fish. From my limited understanding, it seems that his job was to catch the fish, sell the fish, and then catch more fish to sell, plus do all the mending and upkeep of nets and boats to continue fishing. Thanks to Google, I also know that fishermen tended to fish at night. So when Jesus meets Peter for the first time (Luke 5: 1-11), he’s found sitting on the shore mending his nets and probably trying to wrap things up before going home for some much needed rest. I can only imagine how grumpy I’d be with someone coming up to me after an exhausting night of unsuccessful work and telling me how to do it better. God bless anyone who works a night shift for not snapping at the rest of us all the time.

I can’t help but read myself into Peter’s sandals. He’s been kind and taken his boat back into the water so Jesus can have a place to teach. But he’s also already washed his nets, which means when he puts them back in the water at Jesus’ seemingly crazy request, he’ll have to wash them again. I hate re-washing things, and I have the luxury of modern inventions that wash things for me. Yet Peter agrees to do what Jesus said. I wonder if he senses something special about Jesus (he has just listened to him teach) or maybe he thinks Jesus is a bit of a nut. Maybe Peter agrees because he’d rather prove Jesus wrong and get him off his back so he can finish his task and get to bed. Stay in your lane and let me do the fishing. Either way, Peter says, ‘at Your word, I’ll let down the nets” (v. 5).  To Peter’s amazement, he catches so many fish that his boat starts to sink and he needs help from other fishermen to bring in the haul. The second boat also starts to sink from the weight of the massive amount of fish that have miraculously appeared in their nets.

Jackpot! This is a haul to brag about for the rest of his career. This is the answer to financial stability. This is what Peter has worked his entire life for. This is the definition of #blessed.

Now maybe it’s just my nature, but I think if someone gave me everything I’d ever worked for, I would thank them profusely and I’d probably try to stick around them to see if together we could continue that success. After all, that’s what our world teaches. Seek financial security. Work your butt off. God helps those who help themselves. The logic of our world says that when you find success, keep it and keep pursuing it.

That’s not what Jesus wants. Jesus wants them to follow him. So they “brought the boats to shore, left everything, and followed Him” (v. 11). Even here, human logic dictates that they bring in the fish, sell them, and use that money to live off of while becoming a disciple of Jesus. That’s me and my feeble, ‘don’t worry Jesus, I’ll take care of it’ mentality. After all, why else would Jesus just gift Peter so many fish?

But what if we really understood who Jesus was? What if our brains could comprehend his deity and our smallness in light of eternity. Maybe that’s when it makes sense to leave behind everything you ever wanted and worked for to follow Christ.

For 3 years I had a thriving direct sales business, rocking cute nails and making money for my family while in the comfort of my sweatpants and home. I was immersed in a culture of Girl, get your dreams, and every manner of girlboss, mompreneur, inspirational stuff there is.

God gave me that business, He used the money I earned to pay for significant portions of our adoption; my business and the financial success I found was a gift from Him. But when it was time to let go, I struggled. After all, why in the world would I ever walk away from something that was making me money?

To be clear, I have absolutely nothing against the company I was part of and especially nothing against the wonderful, kind, compassionate women I met along the way. And I don’t believe there is anything ungodly or unbiblical about running a successful business. But there is a problem when God tells you to walk away and you disobey. When you realize that you took the success that God gave you and instead turned it into a dream of your own making. There is a big problem when you refuse to leave it and follow Him at His command. God opened my eyes to what that dream was costing me. It’s hard to admit that sometimes we let our dreams become our idols, and they get so big that they block out the better things that God has for us.

That’s what Jesus was, and is, saying to me.

Stop chasing your dreams, chase me instead. Stop seeking your own glory, and seek mine instead. Stop seeking what the world says is #blessed and seek my favor instead.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Matthew 5: 6

Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

Psalm 37:4-5