John 21:3, “I go a fishing.”

On the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, there is a place called “The Primacy of Peter.” It was here where we believe Jesus cooked a meal for His disciples. It was here that Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me more than these?” That question plays into my thoughts for this devotion, but my primary concern is this. Why did Peter and the disciples even go fishing?

The resurrection has occurred; Jesus has appeared suddenly in a room with locked doors, and Thomas has been given the opportunity to put his hand in the pierced side of Jesus. While I can understand the shock and the questions these disciples must have been asking themselves, there was no denying that everything Jesus told them would happen had happened, just as He said it would.

You would think they would be fired up to take this message to the world, and yet, they decided to go back to what they had been doing before they first met Jesus. That’s always been a “head-scratching” question for me. Granted, it’s not every day that someone comes back from the dead, but when you combine it with everything else they had witnessed for more than three years, it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise.

But here was the thought that first captured my attention this morning. Are we guilty of the same? I see a generation that says they have had some kind of encounter with Jesus, but they immediately return to what they used to do. Here’s where the question, “Do you love Me more than these?” comes into play. Do we love Jesus more than the pleasures of the world? Do we love Jesus enough to walk away from what we used to do? Are we willing to embark on a journey of faith, not knowing the details of the journey?  Or, is it more comfortable to just go fishing?