a call to the deep

Jesus’ invitation to participate in His call to bring about transformation, wholeness, and love always starts local and small - in a neighborhood with you and I, and in a location that is mundane, normal, and imperfect (a manger, in Jesus’ case!).  It has to start there...because ‘normal and imperfect’ is the personal space we all inhabit. More specifically that is where YOU are.  In these spaces, there are fewer places to hide and fewer people to please.  Jesus took the disciples out in small groups, often avoiding crowds because he was/is always chasing the ‘deep you’ – the you that isn’t projecting what you think others want you to be.  It’s where he brings to light the YOU that is hidden under the layers of distortion and distraction.

Jesus was not calling to a vague and unspecified blob of humanity.  We aren't a number to him, but a unique, purposed possibility.  He seeks us out and includes us in both becoming AND creating ‘aliveness’ around us. The call to move - to act - is never a "one and done" response to Jesus because life as He describes it is about abundance and fullness, creation, and cultivation.

In Him, the call never ends.

It is always unfolding, and participation in it is joy.

It is an invitation that produces fulfillment from your ongoing participation, which is, among other things, the indwelling of the Spirit through your ongoing surrender to Him.

It is the personal and ever deepening experience of the person of Jesus.

It is the challenge to get beyond yourSELF - which is usually the person You intend to be (pride) or perhaps the person You have resigned yourself to be (hopelessness).

In His call, He asks us to put how we see ourselves (not how He sees us) at risk for the sake of truly finding ourselves in Him.

He does not disappoint. 

I dream of our community being one that is fully alive, and "buzzing" at the idea of becoming fully participatory.  I dream this because Jesus’ call, when received in grace and not in religion or works, is a picture of decreasing divisions (at all levels) and greater participation "in and with" him. Emphatically, this call was not for greater attendance at his events but enlarging the family circle.

Recently a friend asked for prayer over the sense that the Lord had spoken to them about "moving out into the deep".  And while we are going to pray over what being responsive to this call might mean, my immediate response was to smile because there was already a fulfillment of their desire inside of their response and request for help. They reached out! They risked exposing a limitation - all because they know there is something deeper and truer in the word they heard from God than in their desire to stay comfortable or self-protect.  They risked having a deeper knowing, experience, and enjoyment of Jesus.  

Jesus made a powerful invitation in Luke 5:4, "put out into the deep and put down your nets for a catch.”   

Going to the "deep" is scarier but it is where the Lord catches us.  In the process, we become "catchers or fishers of men" who naturally discover and cultivate life in the deep things of God. 

So, I will end as Jesus often started his ministry to others, by asking “who do you want Him to be for you?” Ask yourself...am I willing to declare this to the Lord – “Change me, love me, direct me. I want the deep end not the shallows.”