"I will make you fish for people."

My grandfather was the quietest, most gentle man.  He used to make us lie on the floor and he would say "Stiff as a board! Stiff as a board!" and he would place his gentle old hands behind our little shoulders and lift us up to a standing position, tilting us like a board.  At first we would giggle and squirm, and he might make it worse by tickling us.  But sooner or later, we would learn how to be stiff as a board and he would move us forward and up.  He was so kind, so gentle.

My grandfather was a fisherman in his old age.  He retired to Sanibel Island mainly so that he could fish.  He parked his small boat in a little cove and every morning, early, he would putter out to sea and fish.

One day, my little brother Jonathan decided to go with Granpa on a fishing expedition.  Jonathan was about 5.  I did not ask to go; it simply did not occur to me.  But Jonathan made a formal request to fish and I remember how Granpa's eyes shined with pure pleasure.

They got in the boat early that morning.  We expected that they would not come back until lunch.  But by 9, we heard the puttering motor of the boat entering the small cove in which Gandpa's house sat. And we heard another sound: the sobs of a little boy.

My mother and I rushed outside.  Jonathan was weeping but he did not seem hurt.  He just kept pointing to the fish, lying dead in the pail.  "It couldn't breathe!" he gasped. 

Grandpa got out of the boat.  He was clearly quite disappointed and a little angry.  But in his simple, gentle way, he said, "I don't think I've got a fisherman here."

Jonathan became a vegetarian from that day forward.  That lasted about five years.  He also refused to speak to Granpa for the rest of the vacation, which I found to be a terrible shame.  Evidently, fishing was much more violent than Jonathan had thought.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Come to me, and I will make you fish for people."

There is no denying that fishing is a violent act.  The fish is swimming along, content in an environment called water, an environment which the fish could never identify nor articulate.  And all of a sudden it is yanked into another realm.  In this new realm, it has to die and give it's body for the nourishment of others.  It flails around helplessly, it's mouth and gills pumping, hoping to find water again, but it finds emptiness, air.  It is completely lost, out of its element.  Until it is caught, a fish does not even know that it is a creature of water.  It knows very little of its own existence, that's for sure.

What did Jesus mean when he said that the disciples would FISH for PEOPLE if they followed him? Did he really mean what he said, that they would be yanking people out of their comfortable lives into another level of existence, one in which they could not control their own destiny and they had to give their lives up?  Is that really what he meant?

A lot of us like to think that we spread the gospel in order to make people happy, to help them lead content lives.  We tell people about Jesus so that they can feel better, get their lives in order, right? That is such an appealing thought.  Sometimes I yearn to promise people that their lives will be easier if they become Christian and practice the faith.  But I would not be telling the truth.

In reality, we are introducing them to the One who will turn their lives upside down, the One who will ask them to give up everything, even their own lives, out of love and devotion to Him.  We are yanking them out of their comfortable lives into a realm in which they have little control, in which God alone has the last word.

A friend of mine has six children, and she agreed to house and temporarily adopt a little girl from Afghanistan.  This little girl had a severe heart condition and, through the efforts of a local charity, money had been raised to fly her here to Jacksonville to have surgery.  The little Afghan girl could not walk more than ten steps without getting out of breath.

The surgery was much more complex than the doctors had foreseen.  The little girls family had to be contacted in Afghanistan.  They had to hospitalize her for three months.  And when she was released, they kept her here in Jacksonville for another three months, just to monitor her.  My friend kept in close contact with her mother in Afghanistan.

As the little girl grew in strength, the host family took her to Disneyworld, where she was able to run and play for the first time in her life.  My friend took pictures and sent them to Afghanistan.  It was a miracle to see her play!

Finally, the little girl was ready to be sent home.  They filled her suitcases with new clothes and gifts for her family, marveling at the good work that God had done through the doctors.  They had saved her life.

A few weeks after her arrival in Afghanistan, the American mother got a phone call.  The little girl had died.

They don't know what happened, if it was the altitude that originally made her sick upon her return, but her parents got anxious and put her in the hospital in Afghanistan.  They have no idea what happened in the hospital but someone made a mistake, something went terribly wrong.  And her precious life was over.

Back in the United States, my friend was devastated.  How had this happened?  How could God have made this girl better only to take her life back at home?

The Afghan mother called again.  "I am calling to say thank you," she said.  "My daughter may not have lived long, but, because of you, she ran and played.  Because of you, she really lived."

I wish that I could tell you that fishing for people would make everybody happier, but sometimes living a life of sacrifice and learning to love God is like entering another Universe, where so much more is expected of you and you have so little control.  You flail around, doing the best you can, offering your life for something much larger than yourself.  You wake up to the fact that there is so much more to life than you can ever comprehend and sometimes the best outcome is the one that you least expected.

We do not follow Jesus to be happy.  We follow Jesus to be saved.  We follow Jesus because there is so much more to life than just being comfortable.  We follow Jesus because we get to taste eternity in Him and there is joy there, much better than happiness, there is joy.

On Martin Luther King Day, I walked the bookstore at Barnes and Noble and picked up a new biography of Dr. King.  Dr. Martin Luther King's close friends spoke of his loneliness and even depression, especially toward the end of his life.  He longed for someone who he could sit down with and share his loneliness, his pain.  He was not always happy, but he was saved.  Man, was he ever saved.

After the disciples were caught by the great Fisherman, they would go on to spread the gospel far and wide.  Many of the greatest disciples would be killed for their beliefs, but I bet, if you asked them, they would remember the day that Jesus walked by, the day that they were caught by Him, and they would give thanks for the gift of serving Him.  They would say that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, ever.  Because the gospel is about so much more than being happy.  It is about being caught by Jesus, belonging to him, and what that means for our souls.  It is about a life far beyond our existence here.  It is about joy.  It is about something greater than this life.  It is about God.