“God wants a fleet of fishing boats, not a yachting club.”
There once was a man who went into the boat business. He built a large building and equipped it with premium machinery. He went to the lumber yard and ordered the highest grade wood, visited the hardware store and purchased the most specialized nails, the most desirable paints, etc. Once he had adequately prepared his building, he built the finest fishing boats available. He outfitted them with the strongest nets, the most dependable sails, the sturdiest rigging. He docked the boats in a harbor that he built near his boat building and sold them to people from all over.
Several times a week, the people would gather in his building, observe his work on other new boats, then go to the harbor and admire each other’s boats and the improvements made on them. They would spend hours enjoying each other’s company, sitting on each other’s boats, handling the nets. Occasionally, someone would throw out a line and catch a little fish or two. But never did the boats leave the harbor.
One day, a man came to the boat shop and purchased a simple boat. It was well outfitted and very strong. The man spent hours working on the boat, filling it with supplies, new nets, food and water. The others in the harbor watched him intently as he perfected his vessel, impressed with the man’s work. The people were soon astonished, however, when the boat started to slowly slip out of its sleeve and move toward the open waters.
“He’s crazy!” exclaimed one boat-owner. “He will never make it through those waters out there. What is he thinking?”
Hours passed and the boat-owners waited to see if the man would return in one piece. Shortly before nightfall, a small speck was spotted approaching the harbor. As the speck grew larger, the people noticed how battered the sails were, how scratched the paint was. The man on the boat steered the boat back into its sleeve as the other boat-owners mocked him and criticized his foolishness.
“What were you thinking? What made you take that boat into those waters?” asked an astonished fellow boat-owner.
The man just smiled as he started dumping buckets of fish onto the land.
He looked into the stunned faces of those people gathered around the mighty catch and quietly said, “Boats were made fishing and you won’t catch fish if you don’t leave the harbor. You have to go where the fish are.”
“Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Mark 1:17
