This week we use some of the words from the Sunday service for our reflection.
In church, we read of the calling of the first disciples, leaving the life of fishermen and becoming followers of Jesus. Everything changed for them. It was a risk but they took it wherever it led.
From the sermon.
‘There is always risk involved in answering the call of Jesus to follow Him. We cannot know where the call to follow will take us.
But ours is not the only risk.
Jesus also took a risk on the disciples. For reasons known only to God, God is constantly taking risks on all kinds of people — people who fish for a living, people who are too young to have jobs, people who have retired. Every day God takes risks on the human race, takes risks on people like you and me.
One thing the Bible makes clear about the call of Christ is that the One who calls us is the same One who gives us the strength, the resources, to follow.
Maybe, after all, that was the decisive factor for the four fishermen who left their nets and their boats to follow Jesus. Maybe they sensed at some deep, unconscious level, that here was Someone who could be trusted; Someone who, if he asked much, could give even more.
Jesus is calling us. How will we answer? ‘
A prayer.
‘Lord Jesus, we hear your call to faith. Like Peter, and others whom you met, we hear your invitation ringing in our ears.
We are glad you think us up to the challenge of taking a step out into the dark, into the unknown, out onto insecure and uncertain waters.
We are even more glad that you are with us as we take each step of faith in the midst of our lives’ uncertainties and our world’s ambiguities; glad that you are there whenever confidence disappears, fear comes over us like a wave, and we shout for help like someone drowning; glad in the promise that your hand will catch us, even as we sink.
We bring to you the burden of our fears and failures.
We confess our greatest failure is often our unwillingness to get out of the boat,
To take the step of thinking out of the box, to move from the known and the familiar;
To get involved in strange situations with new people out of hope and compassion.
As we lay our burdens down, may we know you are ever there to keep us from falling, and to challenge us to walk out in faith once again.
So Lord, increase our faith, breathe into us the living fire of your spirit;
Set us again, greatly daring, on the discipleship road. Amen. ‘