{"id":4251,"date":"2020-01-26T01:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T06:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2020-01-25T10:06:37","modified_gmt":"2020-01-25T15:06:37","slug":"drop-your-nets-and-follow-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/drop-your-nets-and-follow-me\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Drop Your Nets and Follow Me!&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe title=\"&quot;Drop Your Nets and Follow Me!&quot; 1\/26\/20\" height=\"122\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/media\/player\/xy2bs-cefda9?from=yiiadmin&#038;download=1&#038;version=1&#038;skin=1&#038;btn-skin=107&#038;auto=0&#038;share=1&#038;fonts=Helvetica&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;pbad=1\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>One day a man was walking through the park on his lunch hour<\/strong><strong>.&nbsp;He saw two men digging a hole on a hot, humid, August day.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He observed something very, very strange going on.&nbsp;<em>While one man was down in a hole digging up dirt, the other man was tossing the dirt back into the hole. The man sat down at a picnic table and watched this go on and on while he ate his lunch.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally the man had enough. He went over and asked the two men what was going on. The man down in the hole wiped the sweat from his face and said,&nbsp;<strong><em>\u201cWe\u2019re a three-man crew. The fellow who plants the trees couldn\u2019t make it today!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An interesting story, to say the least. Maybe it is not so far-fetched.&nbsp;<strong>You and I are so caught up in our daily routines.&nbsp;We forget who or what is supposed to go into those holes.&nbsp;Life can become quite meaningless without putting something of value into it.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In today\u2019s Gospel (Matt 4:12-23), Jesus says to Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John:&nbsp;<strong><em>\u201cDrop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>Jesus said he had special work for them to do:&nbsp;<strong><em>\u201cI will make you fishers of men and women. I want you to help save souls.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus says this to you and to me today as well:&nbsp;<strong><em>\u201cDrop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me.\u201d Put something of value and meaning in the holes of your life.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But how practical and restrictive are Jesus\u2019 words to any of us today?&nbsp;If you are of pre-retirement age, you may well say:&nbsp;<em>\u201cLord, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not talking to me. I\u2019ve got a job, a spouse, children, an aging parent to care for. I\u2019m a single parent. I need money. I don\u2019t have any time. I work 5 to 6 days a week. I come home exhausted. \u201cLord, did you ever have to make a mortgage payment, pay an electric bill, or raise a teenager?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost 40 years ago, Suzy Yehl Marta, a friend of mine, heard the Lord calling her:\u00a0<strong><em>\u201cDrop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>  She was in her mid-thirties, a divorced mother of 3 children in grammar school, and working 3 jobs to survive. When she was able to get it down to one job, she and I got together and started\u00a0<em>Rainbows,<\/em>a support program for children in single parent homes. Over 3 million children have now attended the 26-week\u00a0<em>Rainbow\u00a0<\/em>program offered around the world. Suzy died January 13, 2013 of pancreatic cancer.\u00a0<strong><em>What a wonderful family of millions of children she helped to get to heaven where she can enjoy them for all eternity!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What if you are retired?\u00a0Is Jesus talking to you?\u00a0<em>You may well say<\/em>:\u00a0<em>\u201cMy family, my friends and my neighbors need me. I\u2019ve got aches and pains and a very limited income. I really took a financial beating in the Great Recession. You\u2019re not talking to me!\u201d<\/em>  But who then is Jesus talking to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When my Aunt Mary was 70, she moved out to the suburbs to be closer to her children and her grandchildren. She cornered me one Christmas and said,&nbsp;<em>\u201cMedard, you\u2019ll never believe what I am doing. I\u2019m the \u201cStory Lady\u201d for the kindergarten kids in a local grammar school. I\u2019ve found a whole new vocation late in life and I love it!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One day at a family gathering at a doctor\u2019s house I was introduced to the doctor\u2019s father, who also was a doctor. He was a 65-year old internist from New York who had retired from his practice. I asked him how he was spending his retirement \u2013 golf, family, travel?&nbsp;<em>\u201cNo,\u201d&nbsp;<\/em>he said,&nbsp;<em>\u201cNow that I am retired, I go to a clinic for AIDS patients and spend 8 to 10 hours a day there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>\u201cDrop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me,\u201d<\/em><\/strong><em>  Jesus says this to each and every one of us. No exceptions allowed!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A God Flash<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>There is a story about a 6-year old boy named Johnny who returned home from his first day of school.<\/strong> In class the teacher asked all the children to bring copies of their birth certificates to school the next day so that their records would be accurate. But\u00a0<strong>\u201ccertificate\u201d<\/strong> was too big a word for Johnny to handle, though he knew what the teacher was talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So when Johnny got home, he promptly blurted out:\u00a0<strong>\u201cMom, tomorrow I have to bring in my excuse for being born!\u201d Not a bad idea \u2013 TO HAVE AN EXCUSE FOR LIVING!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How do you respond when Jesus says to you<\/strong><strong>,&nbsp;<em>\u201cDrop your nets, leave what you are doing and follow me?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day a man was walking through the park on his lunch hour.&nbsp;He saw two men digging a hole on a hot, humid, August day.&nbsp; He observed something very, very strange going on.&nbsp;While one man was down in a hole digging up dirt, the other man was tossing the dirt back into the hole. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"qubely_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats-150x131.png",150,131,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"ocean-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"ocean-thumb-ml":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"ocean-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"qubely_landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"qubely_portrait":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats.png",177,131,false],"qubely_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats-140x100.png",140,100,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-with-Boats-45x45.png",45,45,true]},"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Medard Laz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/author\/medlaz\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/category\/weekly-messages\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Weekly Messages<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"One day a man was walking through the park on his lunch hour.&nbsp;He saw two men digging a hole on a hot, humid, August day.&nbsp; He observed something very, very strange going on.&nbsp;While one man was down in a hole digging up dirt, the other man was tossing the dirt back into the hole. The&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}