Say What, Jesus?

How do we know when God is leading us to something that will be a blessing? We do want God's blessings but what can we do to keep our minds and hearts in tune to not only receiving God's blessings but becoming a blessing to others in return?

The imparting of a divine gift or favor is one definition for blessing. With that acting as our working definition, we may need to adjust our idea of what a blessing from God means. It's an extraordinary gift because it comes from God, and not always a material gift necessarily.

The blessing is more often something intangible like a missional calling. We don't often think about a calling to go on a mission as a blessing; which is a special assignment given to a person or persons sent to a domestic or foreign group of people by a religious organization, especially a Christian organization, to spread its message of faith and show God's love by providing educational, medical, and other types of assistance as needed. What an awesome way to be blessed by God!

That's what happened to some men in boats in the ancient region of Galilee in what is now called Israel, on a lake called Gennesaret or the Sea of Galilee. The men were fishing late in the day without much success and Jesus came by and blessed them. He asked one of the fishermen named Simon to allow him to get into his boat to teach a large group of people by rowing out into the lake for him to be seen and heard more easily and he did so.

Jesus talked about God's love for them and afterwards he blessed the tired fishermen by helping them to catch a very large amount of fish in just the right place in the lake. This account can be found in the bible in Luke 5:1-11.

Read that passage to find out how the men reacted to Jesus after they hauled all those fish into their boats and went back to the shore. Jesus finally said to the fishermen, "From now on, you will be fishing for people." What would you do after being blessed like that if you were on that boat with Jesus?