When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Luke 5:4

I am what you might call an avid exerciser. I usually work out four to five days a week and sometimes also take walks.

In some workout videos, they tell you to dig deeper—basically to rustle up all that you have within you to push yourself to your limits and to use energy and strength you think you do not have to get to the next level of fitness.

In this passage, the people were edging Jesus toward the water, so he got into Peter’s boat and spoke to them from the boat. Then He told Peter to go to the deep water.

Now these men had been fishing all night and had caught nothing, which is exactly what Peter told Jesus. Jesus still wanted them to go, and to go deeper.

Peter basically said: “Okay if you say so”, thinking that nothing would happen. To his surprise they caught such a load in their nets that the nets began to tear!

What are the lessons for us?

1. Peter and his men had been working in their own strength, and what happened? Nothing. Sure they knew the sea, fishing was their life, but that night nothing happened and they were exhausted and sleepy from working all night.

2. Sometimes Jesus tells us to do things that don’t seem to make sense. What should we do? Even if we are not sure of the outcome, we should follow the Father’s instructions. It might just be that He is telling us to do something as a test of our obedience, or to show someone around us just Who He is.

3. Jesus wants us to dig deeper. He wants us to keep going when we feel our strength and energy is gone, which is in essence His way of letting us know we can do all things through Him Who gives us strength (Phil 4:13). Sometimes that is what it takes to get us to the next level in our walk with Him. Then He who has seen that we are faithful in little will give us more.

Who knows? When we dig deeper, we just might see a miracle in our life as Peter and the other fishermen did.

–by Pam Rehbein