Our daughter, Anna, is a delightful, typical three-year-old.
She is full of mischief and is pleasantly surprised when her antics draw a burst of laughter. She can throw an impressive tantrum when denied something but can also be touchingly empathatic when she notices an overflow of emotions in another. Her scooter is her primary mode of transport within the house and it only gets a break when parked outside the bathroom when nature comes a-calling.
What I am trying to say in so many words is that she brings so much joy and her incessant chatter (harmonising with her brother’s) is the background music to our life. On the whole, her activities and interests are typical to any three-year-old girl.
What is not typical about Anna is the frequency of usage of some words in her vocabulary. For instance, I am willing to bet that after ‘Amma’ and ‘Appa’, her most used words are ‘itchy’ and ‘oil’. This is because Anna has been struggling with a skin condition the past two years. Given that she just turned three, that’s a two-third of her life. Without going into the details, I’ll just say that it started as a mild form of eczema that was exacerbated due to an allergic reaction to the medication prescribed.
It was torture.
Needless to say, little Anna suffered the most. Her entire body was covered in angry little red bumps that soon turned into scabs because of her constant itching. This in turn lead to a furious shedding of the skin. It became so bad that we would vacuum any place that Anna would spend more than ten minutes in. She was in a constant state of agitation – wanting to itch so bad but denied that freedom by multiple layers of gauzes, bandages, and clothes in order to avoid breaking the skin. Despite that, her tiny fingers would find their way to the offending area and she would itch until her skin cracked and bled. Consequently, this would lead it to get infected and the process of healing would be delayed.
This happened over, and over, and over again. My husband and I would stay awake on endless nights – with nothing but the hum of the refrigerator to give us company. Anna would cry until she was too tired and would fall asleep exhausted. Even then, with her eyes closed, her fingers crept to her sores and yearned to give her itches a proper scratch. Once she slept, I would feel the weight of the day come crashing upon my shoulders. I would weep and sob until I had no strength to stay awake. My husband – bless him – reminded me of the faithfulness of God during those long, seemingly endless days
Anna is getting better these days. She still has a ways to go before we could call her recovered – but she’s getting there. She still wakes up a couple of times a night and asks for oil to be applied on her arms and legs. That’s when she wakes up crying “Itchy. It’s itchy. Oil. Oil.” It’s been over a year that she’s slept through the night and I long for the day when it comes to pass.
This daily occurrence reminds me of a small group of men who were no strangers to long nights. In Luke 5 we read of a particularly challenging time for Peter, James and John who were up all night attempting to catch fish. It isn’t difficult to picture how tiring the job was and how taxing it might have been on their bodies. They must have thrown their nets into the lake every which way. They must have exhausted every trick in the book. However, the physical toll it took on them would have paled in comparison to the hopelessness they must have felt on the inside. Daybreak would have brought with it a sense of dejection and helpless resignation. Going home without a catch of fish is devastating to fishermen who depend on on it for their day-to-day needs.
This is the situation in which Jesus found them.
Choosing Peter’s (then called Simon) boat as a sort of podium from which He addressed the crowds, He sat down inside and taught the people from the boat. Remarkably, Peter agreed to “loan” his boat although he was exhausted. He could have stated his exhaustion as a very valid reason of turning down Jesus’s request and might have headed home. That might have been the last we heard of him. But that small act of generosity and compliance marked that day as the first day of the rest of his life.
When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
Of all the sarcastic, derisive, or scornful ways that Peter could have answered, he replies, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
Master.
That one word is enough to reduce me to tears. Yes, the reality is that I worked all night in vain. Yes, the sea was unresponsive to me and I did not catch a single fish. Yes, I am tired beyond what I thought possible and my heart is in despair. Yes, I gave up on hope and dragged my empty nets to the shore. But no, God was not done.
In his exhaustion mingled with reverence for this Man whose message he had just heard, Peter opens his mouth and begins his relationship with the Creator by calling Him ‘Master’. What a declaration of faith that word was! Peter’s first interaction with Jesus led to him taking an immediate step of obedience. It reminds me of these beautiful lines I read in a book titled God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew. In it he says, “Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I’ll go. And I’ll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I’ll call it the step of yes.”
The result? A shockingly unexpected catch of fish in the very place that seemed hopelessly unproductive a couple of hours back.
“Yes, Lord” is the perfect response to everything that the Lord asks of us. When we begin to lean on our own understanding instead of depending on God’s direction, our lives will quickly go into a downward spiral. On the outside, things might seem fine. But on the inside, where it truly matters, our heart starts to become calloused. We no longer enjoy the sensitivity of conscience that is awarded to a person eager to do His bidding. To paraphrase what John M. Sheehan said, remember that it is possible to admire Jesus and practice sin: to respect Jesus and practice sin; and even to revere Jesus and practice sin, but none of this can produce a passionate love for the Lord Jesus because this kind of love requires obedience.
Once we being to justify the things that seem like ‘non-sins’ to us, we are in dangerous waters. If you feel like you are already in the danger zone and sense that your sensitivity to sin and your quickness to heed to God’s word has diminished, it is not too late to get back on the right path. The Creator of hearts will take away the calloused heart of stone from within us and graciously grant us a heart of flesh in its place. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (Corinthians 15:58).
Have you fished all night with nothing to show for it? There’s no need to fear, the Maker of the sea and everything in it is nearby, and as you obey Him “your labor in the Lord will not be in vain.” No matter what you are going through, dear friend, the Master is at work. He has to let you labour through the night so that He can command a breakthrough in the morning. When you have exhausted all your resources, He will command a miracle into existence and be glorified. When it comes, it will be as sweet as the struggle was long. He knows you’re struggling and scared, helpless and lost, but with Christ in the vessel we can sail through the storm. At His word, the tempest will cease. The victory will be ours and the glory will be His.
As for us, we rest in the hope that on one of these days, Anna’s breakthrough will come. It will be a day of joy and thanksgiving for our family. We will jubilantly declare the work of the Lord and will take to heart the lessons that we were taught to us through this tribulation. When dawn breaks, Jesus will be standing at the seashore. As we drag our full and breaking nets to the shore, the memory of our long and weary night will quietly fade away – only to be written on the tablets of our heart as yet another thing that the Lord has done for us.
2 comments
Glory to be God.. Much needed for me in these days..missing your voice akka..
To God be the glory indeed! I haven’t set up a home studio in our new home yet. Hopefully, it will happen soon. 🙂
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