Caught in the net
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Psalm 34:22
Read Matthew 13:47—52
I guess this image lay close at hand for Jesus. I can see him with his fishing companions when they threw out the net. There, within it, were the fish they were looking for. And there, within it, were the roughies. ‘Well,’ Jesus would have said, ‘isn’t it just like that when you hang around me? All sorts of people gather round me. You’ve got to put up with the company if you want to be where I am. It won’t be you who sorts out all this. We’re living toward the day, the Day of the Lord, but whoever you find yourself with on the way, you just love them and encourage them and keep pointing them to me.’ I think that gives me a clear agenda. It gives me plenty to go on with. And it gives me a certain freedom.
Prayer
Lord, you have spread a net wide enough and, in one way, indiscriminate enough to catch even me. I am grateful, so grateful, to be caught by you and trawled into your catch. Of course I do not really believe this is a chance thing. I believe you have chosen to be my God and to call me your beloved. This day, this night, I thank you that I live alongside all types and conditions of men and women who also name your name. I would not have chosen them all as my friends. Let me love them. Let me love them as I love myself, that is, as though they, too, are called as I have been. As precious as that. As undeserved as that. As needy as that. As wonderful as that.