Repairing

 Conversation has set in following the church service and four of us women are sharing our hearts... talking about where we're individually at in life, where we as God's collective Church can and ought to go in the future. Ideas are flowing and souls are communing and, together, we are encouraging each other - reminding one another of the season we're in and how to best be present for it. 

Then, one of us shares that it's a season of "mending our nets." Here in Alaska, where fishing is an essential thing for so many, the analogy is not lost on me. While the reference may be Biblical and for some, theoretical, it's a way of life in my community and my state. We fish not just for fun but for winter food. In some cases such as the more remote villages of Alaska, fishing and hunting are their only sources of nourishment, particularly in the harsher months. And any good fisher knows that your net is necessary if you are to bring home the goods. 

You can't fish with a broken net and expect to harvest or gather anything and neither can you anticipate a thriving life of loving, serving, and giving unless you stop to address and mend a broken heart. 

Somehow, I feel like, on an individual and a communal level - even on a world level - we are all trying to fish with ripped nets. Recent years have taken their toll and I'm seeing more and more that this mere surviving we're all doing isn't sustainable. We can't expect to be reaping the rewards of life abundant that Jesus promised us unless we take a minute to stop on the shoreline, park the boat, and fix the holes. Take out the debris that's collected along the way. Strengthen ourselves so we are fit and ready to go out and do His work. 

I remember going out as a kid with my family to dip-net and how, after awhile of being out in the water and failing to catch anything, you had to come back in, onto the beach, and pull all the dead stuff out. In order to give yourself the best chance at bringing home a solid catch, you had to make sure that all the rocks, seaweed, fish parts, etc. were removed, and any holes sewed up before it was wise to go back out. Otherwise, fish might swim into your net yet right back out. 

The Scripture comes to mind where it says that, without a vision, death is the result (Proverbs 29:18). If you don't know where you're going and what you want - if you don't know who you want to become or how you hope to get there - you'll keep settling for fishing with broken nets. You'll hang onto past methods of doing things or old seasons you've outgrown but refused to accept. You'll keep doing the same stuff over and over and expecting different results when the reality is, your life needs some repairing. Your family needs some restoring. Your church needs some restructuring. Your business needs some refining. Your relationships need some re-ordering. Yes, you can keep chasing down the elusive "fish" you're trying to catch but truth is, it's going to keep evading you until you're willing to hit pause...and reset. 

Working is important to Jesus - He even called His followers "fishers of men." But there was a caveat: He would send them out to harvest, gather, and reap but only if they followed Him (Matthew 4:19). The invitation was to first, "come, follow..." and then the result would be that He would make them productive in the labor and rewards of the Kingdom. Yet I feel some of us out there are trying to reverse - or even invert - the process. We are attempting to "fish" but doing so with faulty tools - nets that need mending. We are thinking we can catch something when what God is really after in this season is getting us to heed that first invitation: Come. Approach Me. Get close to Me. Be with Me and near Me. Follow Me. Go and do what I want you to. Be My hands and feet.  And sometimes, that may even include the directive: Repair your broken nets. Take the time to face what's hindering you. To lay "aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets..." (Hebrews 12:1) so that you can start living unafraid - move deeper into the ways of love and begin thriving in the true abundance Jesus wants for you. 

Perhaps we need to take a step back and stop forcing a catch that's not divinely directed. Maybe we need to address what's been holding us back so that the Spirit of God in all its healing can begin to work in and through us to the greatest possible extent. Indeed, it could be that our expectations are not what they need to be in this season and that some patient, tedious work of untangling the knotted places, tying up the ripped spaces, and plucking out the dying traces are what God says is most needed right now. 

If that's the case for you, don't see this as wasted time. Even as you mend your own nets, in whatever form that looks like for you, this too can be holy work. Maybe not as big and flashy as hauling in a big catch but still just as important. Take the opportunity to get this right before you head out again. In the hands of our Redeemer, even pauses are never pointless. Read the Psalms and you stumble across the occasional Hebrew Selah - a reminder to stop and listen, to ponder. Even Jesus Himself took moments to leave the pressure of the crowed ways of life to go and reset Himself to do His Father's will. 

So yes, maybe the lady is right and repairing is the directive of the hour and the day. And if so, I want to be among those you are content to fix the torn apart places and prepare for the reward. "Let's not get tired of doing what is good," the Apostle Paul once wrote, "At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up" (Galatians 6:9). I want in on that blessing and if it means doing some hard things to prepare myself and shore up my nets, I'm okay with that. I hope you want in on that blessing too, so let's make the most of this delicate work together, bringing all our brokenness to the Lord and putting in what we have to in order to heal. Good things await us in the season to come even as goodness enfolds us here now, right where we are.