Last Cast

I love fishing, and even at the end of a long day on the water, I have a weakness for one more cast.

Recently, twice at the end of a long day on the water — gear half packed, ready to head home — I've said okay, one more and caught the fish of the day. A big redfish once. Then, the largest flounder I've ever landed.

I'd love to tell you that's my new lucky streak. But the truth is, for every time that has happened, there have been a hundred times it hasn't. 

There's a passage at the end of the gospel of John, where the disciples fished all night and come up completely empty. 

I find something quietly reassuring about that image. After everything those disciples had been through — the miracles, the teaching, the cross, the empty tomb, the risen Christ appearing in their midst — we find them right back where they started. Out on the water. Doing what they knew. On that particular night, they fish all night and catch nothing.

And it is precisely there, in the failure and the emptiness, that Jesus shows up on the beach.

It’s interesting. He doesn't scold them for going back to their nets. Instead, he meets them exactly where they are — and points them in a new direction. "Cast the net on the right side." Simple, almost ordinary. And suddenly there is more abundance than they can haul in.

The barren times are part of life. The empty nets are part of life. But so is the voice from the shore.

I have needed to hear that voice more than once. My guess is that you have too. The good news is that it keeps coming — patient, steady, always from the same shore.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, meet us in our empty-net days — the times when we have tried and come up short, when your presence feels distant and the catch has been poor. Speak to us from the shore. Point us in a new direction. We are listening. Amen.

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