Reaching Wide (Seeing Things in a Different Way)

Hello friends, Dicphote here again with stories to make sense of it all. And we are coming toward the end of reading the book that Ruth and I wrote a few years back called Known, Finding Deep Friendships in a Shallow World. We are on chapter 14 today, it's not a long chapter, but we're wrapping up the section that deals with affirmation, that $4 word that says I like you. And if you go back and listen to a few of the other podcasts, you should get the build up to this. But in chapter 14, we say this and we call it Reaching Wide. Here we go. Children, you have any fish, this is Jesus speaking, they answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. Jesus of Nazareth in John chapter 21 verses 5 and 6. In earlier chapters, we've said don't start conversations by saying, what do you do? Begin with where are you from originally or wherever you born or brought up because it's a non-threatening question. However, there comes a time when what's your line of work or what makes you want to get up in the morning is right on the money. To say the Pentagon is imposing is an understatement of the first order. His five cited symbol of America's military power with its five concentric rings sits on the Virginia side of the Potomac directly across from the Jefferson Memorial. It was built around the clock actually in one year, 1941. It's a bulwark of concrete and steel, mostly concrete, steel was important to the war effort. At the height of World War II was designed to accommodate 40,000 people 24-7. During the Cold War, it was ground zero for the first ICBM rocket from the Soviet Union. I'm going to pause here in the reading of the book and just say some years ago we had some Russian young people visit Washington DC and I took them to the Pentagon to meet with the three-star general and we were walking through the halls and they were quite a talkative bunch but they were dead silent as we walked. Officers would come by and nod and greet them and then when my friend, the general said, you see that space out there in the middle? During the Cold War that was ground zero for the first rocket from your country to hit us. This would be the target. These young people said it's unbelievable because when we were brought up in school, we were taught that you were the terrible people and that you hurt people. They said, do you have all of your military key leaders here in this place? He said yes and they said, we would never do that. This is an amazing thing. Anyway, that's the Pentagon. Since September 11, 2001, it took a hit. As I already mentioned, Admiral Verne Clark was there that day. He had been named Chief of Naval Operations in July of 2000. He stood in a stellar line of admirals, proceeding him with names like Farragut, Nimitz and Halsey. Responsibilities were enormous but kind friend that he was. He made time one morning to allow me to bring four of my friends from California to see him. As we chatted, I asked his spontaneous questions, Admiral. What is it that makes you want to get up in the morning? He thought a moment and said, I wake up every day knowing that I lead the most powerful Navy ever to sail the Seven Seas, pausing, he said, and I want to make it better. Again, I'm pausing in the reading of this chapter and say, our next podcast, I'm actually going to have Admiral Verne Clark on personally. We'll have a little chat to get this. So I think you might want to listen to that. At that moment, I once again realize that what we give our days to defines us in a way that nothing else does, we are made to do. We are designed in the image of God and no one is more productive than he is. We don't call him the creator for nothing. Beyond that, when you inquire about my world in some intuitive way, I begin to believe, you might like me. You're asking me to elaborate on what I give my life to every day. I could be on an assembly line building computer components or cars. I could be a surgeon or an astronaut. I could be in sales or design. It makes not a wit of difference. When you say, tell me about your world, it offers the possibility of a friendship. When you want to see or experience what I do, friendship is almost guaranteed. Jesus spent three years mentoring a dozen young guys who by and large were men who worked with their hands. Palestine's Syria is an agrarian society where people harvest the fruit of the earth in the sea, and it has been since Abraham and Jacob walked a land. When Jesus taught, He used pictures they understood wheat, grapes, figs, fish, and nets. His sun-darkened skin looked like theirs. His carpenter hands were like theirs. He knew hard labor in long hours. He was one of them. Going back, let's go back. When Simon Peter blew it on the weekend of Jesus' crucifixion, he went back to what he knew. Commercial fishing. This is how it reads. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of Tiberius. This is after the resurrection. And He revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Canaan Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. They said to him, we'll go with you. They went out, got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. It's one thing to go pole in line fishing with your buddies. That's what my outer banks long net fisherman friend Charles Daniel calls, looking at. If you fish that way and catch nothing, you've at least had a fun day with friends. Grab chicken-fried steak and a doctor pepper to country eatery and you call it all good. But when you fish for a living and are out all night and catch nothing, not good. That's where Simon Peter and other runaway disciples found themselves, with the lightning sky over the gole-on heights and mistanging low on the still waters between the boat and the shore. They heard someone calling. The man standing on the beach was barely visible. This is how the scripture says it. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. And Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish? They answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. So they cast it and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved, therefore, said to Peter, it is the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off. Anthesis, both talking again, not reading the book here. They were about the distance of a football field. And Peter jumps in the water and swims to shore. Jesus had come here three years before to call them away from their nets to a different kind of fishing. Now not sure what is real, they go back to what they think is real, their nets. But it doesn't work. Then Jesus shows up. John knows that voice and Peter desperate for redemption, plunges into the water, swims the length of a football field to reach it. Jesus had called them from their nets three years earlier to show them how to fish for men. He's here to call them one more time and jams their nets with big fish for emphasis. What a friend he is. At the lowest point in their young lives, he comes into their work a day world and says, let me help you with that. His action is seared in their memories forever. Years later when Old Fisherman John remembers it, he says, we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. Let me commit this just one other little way as we wrap this up and I finish reading this chapter. It isn't that. It's not on the sea of Galilee. It was at my house years ago, I call it getting down. Four children, ages seven and under are enough to keep apparent busy. I was the pioneer and Ruth was the settler. I was out there every day exploring new territory, making new friends and generally plowing new ground. Ruth on the other hand was trying to repair ground that four kids had plowed up. I walked into the house that day tired from my adventures and just spread eagle myself face down on the living room floor, worn out. Now if you have teenagers, sir, they see you lying there, go find mom saying something like dad has weirded out. You may want to check on him or call the EMTs. If however you have small kids, they simply jump on you. The giant has laid down an adult to a preschooler is just that, a giant. And when he lies down, he's no longer a vertical power, but a horizontal, non-threatening, accessible presence. That's what God did at Bethlehem in Jesus. The giant lay down so we wouldn't have to be afraid. On that particular day, my kids and I rough houseed on the floor for a bit, then they ran off to create more mischief somewhere else in the house. When they did, Ruth who'd been in the kitchen came out and sat down by me on the couch, then she snuggled up and I said with a grin, don't stop, but why are you snuggling? She said, you played with the kids? I said, well, they're my kids. She said, they're your kids when you come home, but they're my kids 24 hours a day. You're out there having business lunches, learning new things, introducing people to Jesus. I'm here searching for our three-year-old who is abandoned or closed in the backyard by the kitty pool, but when you come home and play with the kids, you're saying to me that my world counts, my world counts. You're saying, I am a worthwhile person. You're telling me that where I invest my days is a great value. Then she paused and said, when you play with the kids, what you're really doing is loving me. I had no idea. I wonder if that's what Jesus meant when he said, by this all men will know that you are my disciples. If you play with my kids, he actually said, if you love one another, same difference. End of chapter 14, that's it for today. Thank you for being with us, for listening in, for listening up, just for listening. If you haven't subscribed to what I'd like to, please do so on the platform on which you're listening and understand that when you ask somebody about what they do, not as the first thing, but as something in the trajectory of your relationship. When you're really interested in how they give away their days and invest their days, that takes friendship to a whole other level. God bless, catch you later. See you next week.