Mk.1:17,18 – Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
After that paralyzed man was healed, I knew we would have to leave my home town. There had been some Pharisees there that day and they were not happy. They were upset that Jesus claimed to forgive this man’s sins. They seemed to ignore the major miracle of healing; they were obviously blinded by their preconceived ideas and this was way out of their comfort zone.
So off we went from village to village. Everywhere we went, Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom and healed the sick. The crowds were massive as the word of the miracles spread throughout the region. One day, there had been an unusual outbreak of miracles and the crowd seemed unusually large. Some of the disciples wanted to disperse the crowd and try to find some food and get some rest. That’s when Jesus stepped in, “Don’t disperse the crowd, you take care of them. Get them something to eat”. None of us knew what to do because all of our supplies had been depleted. That’s when my brother Andrew stepped forward: “Lord, there is a little boy here with fives loaves and two small fish”. Jesus said, “Give them to Me and have the crowd sit down and get ready to eat”. Before we could get everyone settled Jesus looked up to heaven, gave thanks to His Father, and began to break the bread and hand us pieces of fish and bread. He kept handing us fish and bread again and again until everyone had eaten their fill. All I could think of was that first day I met Jesus when He filled my boat with fish; these miracles were impossible to understand and even harder to explain.
That evening Jesus dispersed the crowd, put all of us disciples on the boat headed to the other side, and then He went up the mountain to pray. This night was going to change everything. Suddenly the wind started picking up, the waves were crashing over the bow, and again it looked like we would lose our boat and our lives. I can’t even explain what happened next- Jesus actually came to us walking on the water. Who does that? We received Him on the boat and found ourselves immediately on the other side. Then Jesus, the boat, and all twelve disciples were transported across the lake. (To be continued)