“Go in peace, share the good news.” Week after week Christians are sent out to bear the good news to a hungry, needy world. Inside though, we wonder why God has entrusted such an important mission to people like us. Yet, this is nothing new. God’s prophets and apostles carried the same anxieties throughout time. Isaiah declares, “I am a man of unclean lips.” Paul asserts, “I am… unfit to be called an apostle.” Peter responds to Jesus’ miracle by saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Yet, without question, God used these flawed and fragile human beings “as is.”
In a world where we are constantly being told that we are never enough – that we do not have enough, know enough, or matter enough – God’s trust in our capacities seems imprudent, even irrational. But notice, Jesus shows us that we will be given all we need for this mission. Jesus meets us at the shorelines of our own lives, going about our daily work, and calls us to lifelong discipleship. Caught up in the net of God’s abundant grace, we are commissioned to go catch others.
image: Fishing boat and nets on the beach. Copyright © 2024 John Warburton Lee/Superstock. Used by permission.