Try One More Time
Can I be brutally honest? New Year’s Eve always seems anti-climactic for me. It’s not the holiday bah humbug vibe at all because that season is truly one of my favorite times of the year. I think many people hang so much of their hope on that one day that it is virtually impossible not to be disappointed on some level. If you really think about it, you stay up with a bunch of friends (unless you’re an introvert), playing games (once again, unless you’re an introvert), listening to music (on your earbuds if you’re an introvert), and waiting for the ball to drop. As the last few seconds of the old year wind down, you scream “Happy New Year,” and kiss the person you can’t wait to spend the next 365 days with. And if you are Steve and me, you get off the couch, say good night, and collapse into bed—that's if we make it until midnight! Somehow, magically, when you wake up the next day, everything is supposed to be different. It’s a fresh slate; it’s turning over a new leaf. But if I’m honest--and if you are reading this far, you gave me permission to be honest--I’m the same person I was 8 hours ago, living the same life, with the same people. The only thing that has changed are the numbers on the calendar.
I was having a similar conversation with a friend of mine a couple of days ago. Every year our church has a corporate 21-day time of fasting and prayer. We agree to give up something in order to seek God and hear His voice for the new year. My friend and I were having an honest conversation about our fasting experiences, and she said, “I almost didn’t do the fast this year.” I was intrigued, and my curiosity got the better of me. “Why?” I asked. And she made one of the most honest, raw confessions I heard in a long time, “I just don’t know if fasting works.”
She had my full attention. If this person of faith and wisdom questioned the effectiveness of a crucial spiritual discipline, what chance did I have? She continued, “I’ve fasted for ten years, poured out my heart to God, believed wholeheartedly that He was going to turn things around in my family, and I can think of nothing that has changed in all that time. Not one ‘wow’ moment, not one breakthrough, nothing.”
The only thing I could think of was how anti-climactic. You would think in all those years God would show up somewhere in the middle of it all. If not a breakthrough, then a crack. If not a wow moment, then at least an “aha.” But nothing? I didn’t know how to respond. I was speechless. How could I ever aspire to answer for the Most High? How could I defend something that she had built her life on and found it to be...well, anticlimactic. She woke up on Day 22 the same person, living the same life, with the same people, but now with a shattered pile of unanswered prayers. All those unmet expectations revealing themselves as fractured promises, broken dreams, and hopeless scenarios that she bent down to sweep up into the dust pan labeled “maybe next year.” Now she was questioning not only the legitimacy of fasting but the Person we are fasting for.
The gravity of the situation hit me hard. While I was still processing this revelation, she woke me from my stupor with an important question: “What breakthroughs or God moments have you experienced in your fasting?” Immediately I thought, “A question I can answer,” but I stopped with my mouth open and my voice silent. If I was completely honest (and that seems to be a recurrent theme of this post), all of the things I had been seeking God for through fasting were still on hold. I had to answer this question for myself in the middle of my doubts and unmet expectations: Am I fasting because I know there is power in this sacrifice of obedience or am I fasting out of obligation? Do I believe that God is going to show up in this fast or am I just one of the blind New Year’s Eve party goers happy to be rid of the pain of the past and hoping that celebrating something new will magically make everything better? And if I don’t really believe that God is willing or able to make a difference in my life, then why bother? Maybe the best thing to do is just learn to live with it and walk away.
Have you ever heard that voice before? Sometimes it sounds like your own voice. Sometimes it masquerades as the voice of reason. Sometimes it may even come from the mouth of a friend. In reality, it’s the voice of the enemy. But if you listen hard enough, there is always another voice.
I made it home that evening, and I shared my conversation with my husband Steve. I made a remarkable discovery. The same voice that whispered to my friend, the same doubt that tapped on my shoulder, stopped by to visit Steve as well. We sat on the couch, two people in the middle of a 21 day fast and confessed that we didn’t know if it was worth getting disappointed again. Maybe fasting was just a box to be checked off or maybe we were doing something totally wrong, but year after year we came away empty.
But there is always another voice. Right there in the middle of the questions, in the torrents of treason, we heard God speak so clearly. The voice came through a scripture we almost grudgingly and half-heartedly agreed to listen to together. The story was in Luke 5, and as the narrator began reading the verses, I felt myself drawn into the story:
He saw two boats at the edge of the lake; the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. He got into one of their boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
“Master,” Simon replied, “we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing...”
It hit me hard. Simon wasn’t washing the nets because he had a successful catch. He was washing the nets because he was discouraged. Simon was a fisherman. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was catching fish, but he gave it his best, and his boat was empty. All he wanted to do was clean his nets and go home. Sound familiar?
But he heard a voice; there’s always another voice: “Throw out your nets into deep water. You’ve got some fish to catch.”
I can almost hear the voices going off inside of Simon at that moment. “Is this man crazy? What does he know about fishing? I’m the professional! I’m just going to throw my nets out again, only to be disappointed again, and have to clean up the mess again, and for what? The words of this traveling rabbi?”
“Master, we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing...”
I’ve prayed for ten years and my kids still won’t talk to me... We’ve believed for healing and the cancer is still there... We’ve fasted time and again and we still have trouble paying our bills...
“Try one more time...”
“Master, we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing...”
“Trust me, row out into the deep, get away from the safety of the shallows, and try one more time...”
When the narrator stopped reading, Steve and I looked at each other, and it was apparent we heard the same voice. I know you are weary. But try one more time.
Do you know how Simon responded to the voice of the traveling rabbi, asking him to do what seemed illogical and all together foolish? He replied, “But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.” If you tell me to fast 21 more days, I’ll do it. If you tell me to believe one more time, I’ll declare it. I won’t take the easy way out; I won’t play it safe. I’ll believe you for the impossible...one more time.
The story didn’t end there. Simon obeyed, and he found himself in the middle of the overflow. He caught so many fish that the nets couldn’t hold them, his vessel couldn’t contain them, and his friends couldn’t keep them! “Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed him.”
So I’m going to ask you the same question I asked myself, “Are you going to let the voices of discouragement, disbelief, and disappointment keep you from the biggest blessing of your life?” If you listen hard enough, there is always another voice. This voice is the voice of Jesus encouraging you to push out into deeper waters...and try one more time. You just might find yourself with a boatful for blessings and a new profession.