Frustrated Waiting

{This work of fiction is based on the framework of John 21:1-5.}

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It was a dreary but familiar rhythm.

Peter cast out his net and heard it slap the surface and then hiss as it sunk. Hand over hand, Peter and John drew it back in scraping ropes over the hull.

Slap. Hiss. Scrape. Nothing.

Hour after hour. All night long.

The motions had come back as naturally as breathing, but tonight he was waking muscles that had been sleeping for years. And they were angry.

Three years ago he had left this boat in a pile of fish and walked away to follow Jesus.

He cast out the net again and shook his head remembering. Loyal to the end was his plan. In his fast talking efforts to be “the rock” Jesus had called him, he had vowed to die with Jesus. Instead he had denied and deserted Him. Jesus alone had died.

Then, incredibly, He came back to life.

Peter draped the empty net over his arm again and sorted out the shadows in the boat. James and Andrew were silhouetted against the moonlight sea, working their net. He saw the dark figures of Thomas and Nathaniel slumping at the oars, and heard snoring in the bow.

He had hoped fishing would ease his mind. The others needed little convincing. They were just waiting after all. Waiting for Jesus to meet them in Galilee, as he said he would. But when? And where was He now? What was taking so long?

He shoved down his growing frustration and helped John pull up the net again. A tangle of seaweed slopped on his foot. He kicked it off.

The working, waiting and wondering. He couldn’t get his mind around it. He’d seen Jesus twice now. Alive. Each time a painful apology burned inside him. But even genuine tears seemed trite considering what he’d done. Or hadn’t done.

The sun fanned out pink on the horizon and gave enough light to see the outline of a man on the shore and the flicker of his fire on the beach. The smoke wafted onto the lake reminding Peter of his hunger. Salt in the wound of a night with no fish.

They were tired, sore, and hungry, and decide to call it a night.

When they were a short distance from shore, the man on the beach called out to them.

“Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

A night of work with nothing to show, and now they were forced to admit it.

No fish.

No breakfast.

No income.

No idea where Jesus was.

No end to the wondering.

“No,” they called back.

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Peter was a broken man trying to piece it back together by doing the next thing. He’d been unable to do even the simple work of a disciple: Stay awake. He had slept. Put your sword away, after he had drawn it. Follow me. He had fled.

So he returned to his boat. But it probably did little to relieve his guilt. Only Jesus could do that. Peter would simply have to wait for Him while doing his ordinary thing.

Sometimes when you and I are waiting for God to move, act or answer, the only thing we know to do is the next thing in front of us. Make the meal, wipe the counter, water the lawn, walk the dog. Dress for work. Go fishing.

We don’t have to know exactly what God is up to. But we can know He is always up to something.

Even when we are waiting, He is working.

Even when we’re not sure what to do next, He knows His plan.

And though we may have lost sight of Him, He has never lost sight of us.