INTO THE DEEP
When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:4)
I sat back and looked at the paragraph on my laptop screen; the same paragraph that had been there for weeks. I knew what I was writing about; at least I thought I did. But the story seemed to have taken a detour on its way and was hung up someplace within my heart and I couldn’t dislodge it. “Was this writers’ block?” I wondered to myself. I glanced at the clock; the day was ebbing away like the days before, and appeared it would end without my story being finished. I rubbed my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Nikki, my thirteen year-old mix dog, wriggled in between the footstool and the chair I was sitting in and rested her head on my knee, looking up at me with what appeared to be sympathetic eyes. I suddenly felt the need to escape and headed down the hallway and returned a moment later with Nikki’s leash.
I snapped the harness around Nikki’s chest, her tail wagging in anticipation of venturing out. I opened the front door and gave a furtive glance over my shoulder in the direction of my laptop as we left the house. It was already dark and the air was cool as we walked. We hadn’t gone far when I heard them; two great horned owls calling to each other: first one and then the other replied back. The sound brought a smile to my lips. I stood still, cocking my head to listen, my gaze drawn to the night sky.
The sky was beautiful and the stars shone brightly like diamonds carefully laid out on a jewelers black velvet backdrop in order to make each facet shine at its best. Just then Genesis 1:1-2 came to mind: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” This was a verse I had been pondering for several weeks and was one that had been the initial catalyst for the story I was writing called ‘Into the Deep’.
I stood studying the night sky remembering that morning when I had been reading Luke 5 about Jesus sending Simon Peter out into “deep waters”. I remembered journaling about deep waters and then looked up other verses that contained the word “deep” in them. That is when I came upon the verses in Genesis 1, and the word picture caused me to stop in awe of what that moment might have been like; the Trinity working together to create something from nothing. The phrase darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters,” captured my imagination. I closed my eyes so that everything appeared dark and I imagined the third person of the Trinity hovering over the waters and the deep. I imagined a great stillness must have been over the scene before God’s voice thundered through the vast emptiness calling forth light for the first time.
“Hello.” His voice seemed to come from nowhere and yet everywhere all at once and I jumped a bit as the eyes of my heart opened to find Him standing beside me. “Hello,” I replied. “What are you thinking about?” He asked as we continued studying the night sky together. I was quiet as my heart seemed to run about in a panic trying to pull together all the thoughts I had been having about the deep. But my thoughts had scattered everywhere when I wasn’t looking and I froze there in His presence.
“How is ‘Into the Deep’ coming?” He asked. My heart gave Him a startled look. But of course He knew the title of the story…He knows everything; nothing is hidden from Him. I looked at my shoes as I muttered under my breath, “Errr, slowly.” I looked up to find Him looking intently at me and I knew He was searching the deep places of my heart as He asked, “What’s wrong?” “I haven’t been writing!” I blurted out. “So I’ve noticed,” He said quietly. “Lord, it’s like the story is right there on the edge of my heart but it won’t go any further. The more I read about the deep, the deeper the story seems to get stuck. I sit down to write and I keep coming up empty. I’m stuck!” I finished with a sigh. His eyes were serious as He spoke, “Why haven’t you come to Me about it?” “Why indeed?” I thought to myself but before I could reply we arrived home, and He beckoned me to follow Him to the Well of His Word to spend some time with Him there.
We went together to 1 Corinthians 2 and He spoke to me about Him crucified and the Father’s wisdom. Verse 10 caught my attention, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” There was that word “deep” again. “Lord,” I whispered, “what is it about the deep you want to teach me?” It was then He took my stuck heart in His nail pierced hands and carried me back to where my journey into the deep had begun in Luke 5. As He spoke I felt the breeze off the Sea of Galilee brush my face and the words began to paint a vivid picture in my mind’s eye.
Simon stood and stretched before returning to the task of cleaning and mending his fishing nets. Discouragement mixed with frustration weighed down upon his heart as he worked. He and his brother Andrew along with their partners had been out on the water all night working the nets. He had been a commercial fisherman all his life; he was no newcomer to the trade. The weather conditions, the sea, they all indicated perfect fishing conditions; he should have had a good catch to show for his efforts. Instead all he had to show for his night of hard labor were dirty and damaged nets.
It was then he noticed a crowd moving down the beach. He watched for a moment but then returned to the task at hand. He stood examining the nets before moving to the other side and bending down continued cleaning them. A few minutes later movement caught his attention and he looked up from his work just as a familiar figure was boarding his boat. Not wanting to chance his fishing nets being taken by would-be fishermen, he gathered them up and headed to his boat.
He stopped a few feet away and looked up, his eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. He was about to speak but Jesus spoke first, asking Simon to push his boat a short distance from the shore so he could teach the people from there. Simon nodded in agreement as he began lifting the heavy fishing nets over the side of the boat and then moving to the bow pushed until the boat slowly began to move at which point he climbed on board and using the oars rowed a short distance from the shore as Jesus had requested. Jesus sat in the bow of the boat and began to speak to the crowd as Simon let the anchor down to keep them from going adrift. While Jesus taught, Simon continued working on the nets.
Listening to Jesus speak to the crowd reminded Simon of the first time he met Jesus. He remembered the day well. He had been working on the fishing nets – much like today when Andrew had found him and announced that he had found Messiah. He recalled clearly what Jesus had said to them that day. “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” They had left the nets behind and followed Jesus but then the need to make a living arose and they returned to their fishing nets and boats.
Not long after that he, along with Andrew and James and John were working the nets out on the lake when Jesus again called them to follow Him, declaring again that He would make them fishers of men. None of them understood what that meant but they followed and oh the things they saw. They heard Jesus speak and watched Him cast a demon out of a man in the Synagogue. After that Simon Peter and Andrew invited Jesus over for the evening meal and arrived at the house to find Simon’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a high fever; his wife tending to her but with no results. Jesus walked in and took hold of her hand and she was immediately well. The fever completely left her. In fact, she got out of bed and served them dinner – it was amazing!
It wasn’t long though and Simon Peter returned to what he knew: fishing. Fishing was more than making a living, it was who he was. He was a fisherman both in trade and in heart. He was brought out of his thoughts by Jesus who had finished addressing the crowd and stood looking at him intently. Simon had finished his work on the nets and was glad to see that Jesus was finished teaching. He was anxious to head back to shore and get some sleep before he and his partners began another long night of fishing.
Jesus’ voice interrupted Simon Peter’s plans as He said, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” A torrent of thoughts rushed through Simon’s mind as Jesus’ command still hung in the air. This was not the time of day the fish would be biting. All Simon’s fishing knowledge and experience contradicted what Jesus was saying to do – what Jesus was telling him to do just didn’t make sense. Still there was something in Jesus’ voice – something in His eyes that invited Him to trust Him.
Simon replied, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” Simon rowed out to the deep water and dropped the nets over the side expecting them to come up empty. He was wondering to himself how he was going to have time to clean and repair the nets again before they had to leave for their night of fishing. But suddenly the boat began to list to the right and dropped down so low that they began to take on water. He began struggling to haul in the net but couldn’t. In fact, both nets were so full he feared the boat would sink. He yelled for his brother and partners to come and help. They brought the second boat and transferred one of the fishing nets to them and their boat also nearly sank from the weight of the catch.
Simon looked at Jesus and realized who He was. Jesus was Messiah – the very Son of God. And he felt so unworthy to be in Jesus’ presence. He fell overwhelmed to his knees and bowed down at Jesus’ feet as he cried, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Jesus looked Simon in the eye as He said, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” Jesus’ words penetrated Simon’s heart and when they got to shore he left behind the largest single catch of fish they’d ever hauled ashore and followed Jesus into the deep.
I sat in quiet wonder pondering the story, when I heard His voice rumble through my soul as He said, “Diana, put out into the deep.” I remained quiet as His words echoed through my heart. Just then the book I had written caught my eye. The writing and publishing of that book had happened out in the deep waters. After the book was published and I was looking at the cover with a friend, she looked at me and said, “Next you will be speaking.” There was a loud silence that followed her words and suddenly I realized where I was. I was in the deep and I was terrified. I couldn’t touch bottom, I was too far out and so frantically I had headed back; back to what I knew; back to shore; back to the shallows.
I plopped down on the shore and stammered, “Lord, I’m…I’m” “In over your heart?” He finished my sentence for me. He always has just the right words to say. I simply nodded in agreement. He took me back to 1 Corinthians 2 and He spoke verse 5 into my heart, “…so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” And then the end of verse 10: “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” He quieted my heart as I sat in His presence. I thought again of Genesis 1 and how the Spirit hovered over the deep and then 1 Corinthians 2:10 the Spirit searches the deep things of God and my faith doesn’t rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power. Man’s wisdom sinks in the deep – it has to stay in the shallows but God’s power commands the deep. I wondered then about the moment just before Simon let down the nets. Was the Spirit hovering over the deep just then – just before God’s voice thundered through the deep and the fish obeyed and swam into the nets.
I realized then that there were many layers to the deep, and I would never finish discovering them all. As I followed Jesus, He would always be drawing me deeper: deeper trust, deeper faith, deeper obedience; deeper surrender, always deeper. Jesus leaned in close then and I felt His breath on my heart as He whispered sweet and low, “Diana, put out into the deep.” I knelt at His feet then completely overwhelmed by His presence, and I worshiped Him. I rose then and splashed through the shallows praising Him who always holds me firmly in His grasp and I followed Him into the deep.
An Original Conversations at the Well
By Diana Morgan
November 9, 2009
©2009
CONVERSATION POINTS
INTO THE DEEP
FAITH AND EXPERIENCE
“The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of the hole-and-corner business of our experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think Who the New Testament says that Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meanness of the miserable faith we have –I haven’t had this and that experience! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims --- that He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterable pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified. Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him, He is made unto us “wisdom, and we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! Our salvation is from hell and perdition, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We have to get out into faith in Jesus continually; not a prayer meeting Jesus Christ, no a book Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, Who is God Incarnate, and Who ought to strike us to His feet as dead. Our faith must be in the One from Whom our experience springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself. We never can experience Jesus Christ, nor ever hold Him within the compass of our own hearts, but our faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him.
It is along this line that we see the rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost against unbelief. All our fears are wicked, and we fear because we will not nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! It ought to be an absolute paean of perfectly irrepressible, triumphant belief.
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
Before we begin our exploration of the “deep” stop and ask the Lord to guide your time with Him. Examine your own heart. Ask Him to reveal anything in you that needs to be confessed. Psalm 139:23: Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
I hope you read through 1 Corinthian’s 2:1-16 as we will be referring to portions of it throughout the evening.
In 1 Corinthians 2:4 what did Paul give as the reason for demonstrating the Gospel message by the Spirit’s power rather than wise and persuasive words? (fill in the blanks)
So that your might not on men’s , but on .
In your own words, what does this statement mean to you?
What kind of wisdom does Paul refer to in verse 7?
In verse 10 what does the Spirit search?
With these wisdom verses in your heart, let’s travel over to the Old Testament and take a walk through some verses about the Deep.
Look up each of the following verses and answer the questions.
Genesis 1:2 What was over the surface of the deep?
Genesis 2:21: What kind of sleep did God place Adam in?
Genesis 15:12 What kind of darkness enveloped Abram?
Jonah 2:3 What was Jonah hurled into? What swirled around him? What swept over him?
Do you find any kind of common thread in what you have just read about the deep?
Take a look at the following summary statements:
Genesis 1:2 tells us that there was a darkness over the surface of the deep. But over the deep the Spirit of God was about to move; something amazing was about to take place. In Genesis 2:21 we find that God placed Adam in a deep sleep just before God moved and created the first woman. In Genesis 15:12 Abram fell into a deep sleep and a dreadful darkness enveloped him just before God spoke and revealed His covenant to Abram. In Jonah chapter 2 Jonah cries from the depths of the big fish that the deep surrounded him just before God used him to save an entire city.
Turn with me to Luke 5 and read verses 1-11 paying close attention to verse 4-6. Please allow me to add a little context to these verses. First, for the purpose of tonight’s study, we are going to focus in on Simon Peter. This was not the first time that Simon Peter and Jesus met. Matthew 4:18 and Mark 1:16-20 both record the first time Jesus called Simon to follow Him.
In Mark 1:17 what did Jesus say to Simon Peter?
In Mark 1:18 what did Simon Peter do?
The second time we find Jesus and Simon Peter together is at the Synagogue in Mark 1:21-28
What miracle did Jesus do?
Simon Peter takes Jesus to his home where they find Simon’s mother-in-law ill. What does Jesus do?
Now let’s return to Luke 5.
What do we find Simon Peter doing in the opening verses of Luke 5?
Simon Peter had returned to what he knew: fishing. Sound familiar? Jesus called you to follow Him. You start out well and with good intentions but before you know it, you’ve gone back to what you know; back to what’s comfortable. Can you think of a time in your life when you experienced this (it doesn’t necessarily mean a sinful lifestyle)?
I want to show you something. In verses 1-3 Simon is found cleaning and repairing his nets after a night of fishing. Look at Simon’s statement in verse 5. Fill in the blank. Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and caught anything.”
Hmmm. I read that and wondered if they didn’t catch any fish why did they need to repair and clean the nets? Why do you think that is?
Even though they didn’t catch any fish, they caught other things in the nets. Maybe someone’s old sandal or a part of a sword or weeds and other debris.
Back up to verse 4. Write out what Jesus said to Simon Peter. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “
What word do you see in there that we have been reading about?
What is Simon’s response? Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.” Don’t miss this next sentence – it’s crucial “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” Underline it. Highlight it.
Can you relate? You’ve been working hard and have come up empty. Here comes Jesus and He sends you into the deep. The deep, ever been there? We don’t like the deep. Our hearts can’t touch the bottom and we feel small, but Jesus calls us into the deep places.
Your thoughts are swirling with, “He just doesn’t get it. I’ve done that and it didn’t work. I let down the nets of my heart again and look what happened. Lots of repair work had to be done because of all the debris I picked up from the last time I was out there.” Jesus doesn’t relent. “Put out into the deep and let down your nets…”
Beloved, before we continue, let’s go back to 1Corinthians 2:9 Write this verse out
Jesus’ command is still echoing through your heart and you say, “I’ve already been doing that. I’ve been working hard. BUT because you say so, I will let down the nets. Because you say so, I will do it. What Jesus told Simon to do went against man’s wisdom. Go back and read 1 Corinthians 2:5 What does our faith rest on?
When Simon obeyed Jesus, what happened (verse 6)
Simon caught so many fish that he had to call for reinforcements. He needed another boat and crew to help get the catch to shore. In fact there were so many fish that both boats were sinking from the weight. That’s a LOT of fish!! Take note: It was the wrong time of day to be fishing. But God isn’t limited by the time of day or seasons or weather patterns. GLORY!!
What is Simon Peter’s response to what Jesus did in verse 8?
You can sum it up in one word Simon WORSHIPED Jesus.
Then Jesus says something interesting to Simon at the end of verse 10. He tells him Don’t be , from now on you will catch
What did Simon Peter do in verse 11?
Simon left the huge catch along with all his gear on the beach and followed Jesus.
My dear friend, where does tonight find you? Have you been dancing on the edge of fully following Jesus? Did you see the progression Jesus took Simon Peter on as He step by step drew him into a deep-water faith?
Go to Jeremiah 29:11 Read this verse slowly. Oh Beloved, God knew the plan He had for Simon Peter and He knows the plan He has for YOU. Plans to give you a future and a glorious hope!
Are you in the shallows and know that Jesus is asking you to ‘put out into the deep’? You list all your “why you can’t” reasons but remember what we learned in 1 Corinthians 2:5 Beloved, your faith doesn’t rest on man’s wisdom but on God’s power.
Are you in a dreadful deep? Is there a darkness over the dreadful deep? In Genesis the Spirit hovered over the deep just before the light came. But we have the Spirit DWELLING in us. Oh my friend, this is much better than hovering. He is IN you. GLORY!! With that GLORY ringing through your heart run with me to Romans 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!
Let the golden threads of this truth sink deep into your very heart. God loves you too much to leave you where you are. He continually draws you deeper: deeper trust, deeper faith, deeper love, always deeper. And as you walk in obedience and set off into the deep with Him and you let down the nets of your heart in total reliance on Him, Oh the blessings that come from the “deep” will be more than you can imagine or possibly contain. GLORY!
Jesus said, “Your name“ put out into the deep…
An original Conversations at the Well
Diana Morgan
November 9, 2009
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