My mind has been called back a few times in the past couple of weeks to the moment when Peter returns to fishing. He goes back to what he knows after the death of Jesus. I’ve heard many preachers (rightly) say that this was a fear based decision because of the uncertainty Peter was facing. Yet, what is beautiful is that God picks us up where we are and not where we should be, and sometimes He lets us (or leads us) back to the beginning where our journey started.
I think this is because there are some lessons that need to be learned more than once, repeatedly even.
Jesus calls Peter to go fishing (for men) again, and Jesus even pauses to cook up some breakfast in the meantime.
Our culture views life on a linear path with each day either breaking or building on the last, but life is also cyclical and we can find ourselves treading the same ground. What is glorious about this though is that in Christ this isn’t just spinning our wheels trying to get out of a ditch. Something else is happening in all of this and we often overlook it because we are too focused on the ditch. God’s grace. God lifts us out of the ditch.
Then after, God calls us to repent, he calls us out and onward. But the best thing God calls us is “friend.”
Ben Bowman Speaks 