A reflection on Luke 5:1-11 for Thursday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time.
Simon has had a bad night. He has worked, waited, tried again, and come back with empty nets. For someone whose living depends on fishing, that is not a small disappointment. It is the kind of failure that gets under your skin because you did what you knew how to do, and it still did not work.
Then Jesus shows up. I find that detail strangely comforting because Jesus does not wait until Simon is successful, confident, or in a good mood. He meets him tired, disappointed, and probably ready to be done with the whole business. That feels familiar.
There are times when I assume failure means I misunderstood everything. If something falls apart, I start wondering whether I chose badly, prayed badly, planned badly, or simply missed what God was trying to tell me. Empty nets can make me very certain that the story is over.
But in this Gospel, the empty nets are not the end. They are the beginning.
Jesus tells Simon to go out again. That must have sounded ridiculous. Simon is the fisherman. He knows the lake. He knows the time of day. He knows they have already tried. Still, he says yes, not because the evidence is strong, but because Jesus asked.
That kind of trust is harder than it sounds. I like trust better when it comes with a little supporting data. A sign would be nice. A reasonable probability of success would be even better. Simon gets neither. He gets a word from Jesus.
And then the nets fill.
The miracle is dramatic, but what catches my attention is what comes before it. Simon has to go back to the place of disappointment. Sometimes that is where faith becomes real. We may have to return to a relationship where we feel discouraged, try again after rejection, pray again after silence, begin again after a plan failed, or show up again after embarrassment.
That does not mean every failed effort should be repeated forever. Sometimes wisdom really does mean walking away. But failure by itself is not proof that God has finished with something. We are often too quick to treat results as revelation.
If something succeeds, we assume God blessed it. If it fails, we assume God closed the door. Life is usually more complicated than that. The cross should have cured us of the idea that visible success is the only sign of God’s presence. Simon’s empty nets teach the same lesson on a smaller scale.
God can work in disappointment. God can meet us after the thing we hoped for did not happen. God can use a season that feels unproductive to redirect us toward something we never expected. Sometimes God does not simply restore what failed. God changes the whole direction of the story.
Simon begins the passage worried about fish. By the end, Jesus is calling him to people. That shift is easy to miss. The miracle is not only about getting a better catch. It is about opening Simon’s imagination to a larger calling.
I wonder how often I ask God to fix the empty net when God is trying to show me a different shore.
There are failures that eventually reveal a new path. A job that does not work out can change how we understand our gifts. A ministry that struggles can force a parish to listen more carefully. A relationship that ends can expose patterns we need to face. A season of disappointment can strip away false ideas about who we thought we had to be.
None of that makes failure pleasant. It simply means failure does not get the last word. Simon’s story reminds me that God is not embarrassed by empty nets. We are. We want something to show for our effort. We want proof that our work was worthwhile. We want the tidy ending.
God seems less interested in protecting our pride. Sometimes the empty net becomes the very place where we learn dependence, humility, courage, and trust. And sometimes it is where the call begins.
Maybe the question is not, “Why did this fail?” Maybe the better question is, “What is Jesus asking me to do now?”
Journaling Prompts
- Where in my life am I carrying disappointment over something that did not work out?
- Have I assumed that failure means God has closed the door?
- Is there something I may need to try again, but with a different spirit or direction?
- What new calling might be hidden inside an old disappointment?
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