To toil…..to be weary……..

“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”   And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear!   A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.

 When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.”

For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him.   His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.”   Luke 5:1-10 NLT

Very likely, Peter and all three of his partners were very tired, maybe even to the point of exhaustion: they’d just finished fishing all night, and had caught nothing. They were very likely discouraged at having not caught even one single, solitary fish for an entire nights work.

 Has something like this ever happened to you?  Have you worked, toiled, sweated, bled, and used up every ounce of your energy on a task, only to see absolutely nothing come from it?

If so, how did you feel afterwards?  You probably felt pretty down, and were happy to call it a day when the time came for you to leave work, right? 

Think about how Peter felt: he was probably exhausted from his work, discouraged, and maybe even terribly disappointed; after all, if they didn’t catch any fish, they couldn’t take them to market, and if they could not take a catch of fish to market, they would not be able to put food on their families’ tables.

Then, after what had been a good lesson and a great message, Jesus makes this one request.  How did Peter feel about that?  We see his feelings in his response to Jesus. “We’ve worked all night, and not caught even a minnow!” 

Discouraged?   Yes.   Defeated?   Almost! Yet, all the same, and, again, without a word of reason why, Peter said, “Yes”.

Toil means: To feel fatigue, to work hard, to be wearied, reducing strength, Pains/trouble.

When you work all night and accomplish nothing, you feel defeated. This is the way that believers feel at times.

How many times are we disappointed because things didn’t turn out like we wanted them to?  We did everything we knew to do, but nothing turned out right.

When you have come to the end of yourself, that’s when God can step in.

We are MORE THAN CONQUERORS–a conqueror DOES NOT QUIT. We must keep on keepin’ on.  We cannot afford to just give up.

You’d be surprised at how many people are depending on you.

We are important, unique, special people and nobody can take our place.

We are changing things. We are causing things to happen.