Mark 1:17

This is one of the earliest moments in Jesus's public ministry, recorded in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee — a large freshwater lake in northern Israel — when he came across two brothers, Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were professional fishermen, casting nets into the water as their daily work. Jesus's invitation, 'Come, follow me,' was a radical call to leave their occupation and travel with him as his students and companions. His promise — 'I will make you fishers of men' — took their existing skill and identity and pointed it toward a new purpose: drawing people toward God.

Jesus, you called ordinary people doing ordinary work, and you didn't ask them to become someone else first. Thank you for that. Show me where you're already standing in my everyday life, asking me to follow. Give me the courage to leave the net when the moment comes. Amen.

Nobody gets called to something they've never touched. Notice that Jesus doesn't walk past the fishermen and recruit accountants. He finds two men knee-deep in their work, smelling like lake water and nets, and says: that thing you do — that focus, that patience, that ability to read the water and know where to cast — I want to use that. The call wasn't 'abandon who you are.' It was closer to 'let me show you what you were always for.' That's worth sitting with, especially if you've ever thought your ordinary life was too ordinary to matter to God. The skills you've spent years developing, the relationships you've built, the work you show up to every unremarkable Tuesday — Jesus has a habit of meeting people exactly there. The question 'follow me' is still being asked. Not in a loud voice, usually. Sometimes it's quieter, more like a nudge than a shout. But it's worth asking: where in your everyday life might Jesus be saying, 'I want to use that'?