I collected baseball cards as
a kid. I would get them out of bubble gum
packs. I kept them in shoe boxes. I hardly knew any of the players, but that didn’t
stop me from “collecting” them. After a
while the thrill wore off and I placed them in the closet and forgot about
them. Later on in life a friend told me
how valuable some of those cards could be.
I dug them out of the closet and once again became obsessed with buying
and collecting them. But that was many years
back.
I loved basketball. I played in high school (not very well, but I
played). I played while in the
military. I played up until way after 40
years old. Anywhere I found a hoop and a
ball, I played. My friends and I would
gather in the apartment complex parking lot where there was a basketball goal
and a light and play till late in the evening.
We would get the key to the gym and stay there playing ball until we
couldn’t walk another step. But that was
years ago.
My little granddaughter, Kinsley,
loved to swing on the big front porch swing at our house. She and I called it the “bus”. She would pretend to put gas in the “bus” and
make sure it had a good “battery”. Then
she would say “Bump, make it go fast”. I would swing the “bus” while she sat back
and enjoyed the ride. But that was 3
months ago.
John tells us a story about a
fisherman named Peter. Jesus found him
doing what he knew best, fishing. He followed
Jesus, he walked with Him and learned from Him and followed His examples. He learned to “fish” for men. But I guess the love for the kind of fishing
he was raised to do never left his heart because when Jesus was crucified on a
cross outside of Jerusalem and buried in a tomb, Peter reverted back to what he
knew and loved. In John 21:3 Peter says “I’m going fishing”. He got in the boat, loaded the nets and
pushed off. Little did he know that this
was going to be his last trip to the “fishing hole”.
The next morning the risen
Jesus called Peter aside and as he walked with He walked along the shore, the
waters licking at their feet like a big wet dog, Jesus asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me”? Some say the three times reflect on the completeness
of the number three. Some say it was
because Peter had denied Jesus three times.
I don’t know why Jesus asked him three times but I believe that this
point and time in Peter’s life stands a a paradigm shift for the big
fisherman.
Up until now Peter loved to
fish. It was what he did. He fished for fish. They were his livelihood.
It was the way he made his living and fed his family. It was probably the most important thing in
his life. But there on the sands of the
sea shore that morning Peter had a paradigm shift and it changed his occupation
and his life.
Peter would no longer be a
fisherman, he would be a shepherd. We
have no record of Peter ever going fishing again. After receiving his marching orders from
Jesus that day, Peter hung up his nets and fishing equipment and took on the
occupation of a shepherd. Instead of
netting fish, he fed lambs.
There are a lot of things that
are important to us throughout our lives but when we encounter Jesus and
understand from Him what is really essential, the prevailing view of things,
the pattern and model and example of our lives will never again be the
same. Have you “shifted” since you met
the Savior?
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