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TRUE NORTHFINAL1.qxp 12/8/06 9:52 PM Page 1



True North© 2002 by Gary Inrig

All rights reserved.

Discovery House Publishers is affiliated with RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49512.

Discovery House books are distributed to the trade exclusively by Barbour Publishing, Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

Book design: Sherri L. Hoffman

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV), © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the

International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan BiblePublishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataInrig, Gary.

True north: discerning God’s way in a changing world / by Gary Inrig.

p. cm.ISBN 1-57293-076-41. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4501.3.I57 2001248.4--dc21

2001047300

Printed in the United States of America

02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 /DP/ 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


To Stephen and Jula

with the prayer that as you navigate together

you might live to the glory of God

and the good of others.


CONTENTS

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

1. Ocean Bound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

2. Finding True North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

3. “Don’t Leave Home Without It” . . . . . . . . .49

4. Spiritual Ballast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

5. God’s Compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79

6. Load Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93

7. Money Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111

8. Character Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

9. Staying Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145

10. By Faith Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165

11. Travel Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179

12. Homeward Bound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193

13. Stress Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211

14. Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

15. Trusting a Sovereign God . . . . . . . . . . . . .243

16. Staying the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .279


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Leonard Sweet first planted in my mind the metaphor of naviga-tional skills. He has developed that picture in terms of church

leadership in a book entitled Aqua Church. It is appropriate for meto acknowledge my indebtedness to him.

The family of believers at Trinity Church in Redlands has beena wonderful blessing in my life. They were the first to hear much ofthis material, and I am profoundly grateful for their warm responseand their continual encouragement.

My wife, Elizabeth, is not only a wonderful sailing companionon the seas of life; she is also a constant example of one who navi-gates life well, to the glory of her Lord. I thank my God for her.

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INTRODUCTION

The images will never leave our minds. The stunning news that aplane had flown into one of the towers of New York City’s World

Trade Center on September 11, 2001, seemed at first like a terribleaccident. When, shortly thereafter, another plane flew into the sec-ond tower, followed by an attack on the Pentagon and a thwartedattack on an unknown target, it became evident that these were hor-rific acts of terrorism. As we heard the news and watched those mas-sive buildings collapse, thinking of the thousands of innocentpeople trapped inside, we all felt a bewildering mixture of stunneddisbelief, intense grief, and deep anger. In moments, two famouslandmarks of the world’s greatest nation were reduced to “GroundZero.” In an act of incomprehensible evil, thousands of lives werecut short, families were torn apart, and everything changed in a mul-titude of ways, large and small. The world and the way we deal withit changed on 9-11, 2001.

Suddenly, leaders faced situations for which there were no con-tingency plans. How could emergency planners possibly have con-ceived of such diabolical willingness to sacrifice one’s own life andtake so much innocent life? The situation was complicated by theobvious sophistication of the terrorists’ plans and compounded byrumors, uncertainties, and further terrorist attacks via mail lacedwith anthrax. Experts could turn to no developed maps or plans.They had no previously designed scenarios to follow.

We would love to believe that we live in a world wherehuman brilliance can imagine all eventualities. But you cannotimagine the unimaginable. Government leaders at all levels foundthemselves navigating their way through a horrendous storm, usingall the skills they had learned over the years in many different

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contexts and applying them to new and very fluid situations. Theywere sailing off the map, trying to steer a course through waters thenation had never previously traveled.

Those fallen towers may well become the symbol of the newmillennium into which we are moving. Hopefully, the trauma ofSeptember 11 will never be repeated. But it is not the only way inwhich seemingly immoveable landmarks are removed from our cul-ture. When Daniel Moynihan retired in 2000 as United States sen-ator from New York, he was asked what had been the biggest changein his forty years of public service. His response is worth pondering:“The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structurehas come apart all over the North Atlantic world. [It has happened]in an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable fortyyears ago has happened.”1

I am personally convinced that the slow but sure collapse of thefamily is having even greater long-term effects on our lives and cul-ture than Osama bin Laden’s terrorist attacks. Coupled with that col-lapse is a massive shift toward a pluralism and relativism thatundermines our understanding of truth, spiritual reality, and moralvalues.

Our local paper recently printed a poignant letter from a teacherwho had returned to the classroom after a twenty-year absence.Nervously she approached her seventh-grade class, worrying abouthow she would begin. In her earlier years, she had begun the schoolday with the greeting, “Good morning, students,” to which theywould reply, “Good morning, Miss Jones.” Deciding to repeat whatwas familiar, she walked into the classroom, put her books on thedesk, wrote her name on the board, and then turned to face theclass. “Good morning, students,” she began. A loud voice in thefront row responded, “Shut up, ____,” and the class erupted inlaughter. In her letter to the editor she asked, “What happened inAmerica between ‘Good morning, students,’ and ‘Shut up, ____,’ andwho is going to do something about it?”

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The world has changed, and the old maps no longer match real-ity. We live in a fast-changing, unpredictable, highly fluid worldfrom which many of the familiar landmarks have vanished. In pasttimes, people talked about sailing or marching off the edge of theirmaps. That is where we are in our new world.

Maps are helpful if they accurately reflect the landscape. Butwhen maps fail us, we need to know how to navigate. The heart ofthis book is the conviction that God has given us both the tools andthe skills to navigate our world, so that we will safely and success-fully arrive at the destination to which He is calling us.

In the thirteenth century, the world changed dramaticallybecause a simple new device, called the compass, arrived on thescene. The compass opened up the world for exploration, trade, anddiscovery by freeing sailors from the coastlands. One scholardescribes the impact of this most basic navigational tool: “The com-pass was the first instrument that allowed navigators, at sea, onland, and—much later—in the air, to determine their directionquickly and accurately at any time of the day or night and underalmost any conditions. This allowed goods to be transported effi-ciently and reliably across the seas and opened up the world tomaritime exploration. The earth would never be seen the same wayagain. The compass was therefore the most important technologicalinvention since the wheel.”2

The compass was a revolutionary device that changed the waypeople related to the natural world. But the Lord Jesus has given Hispeople something even greater: navigational tools that transform ourrelationship to His world, as well as to our own rapidly changingworld. The idea that we are called to navigate life actively by usingGod-given tools has been a tremendous help to me in thinkingabout how we are called to live as followers of Christ in a fluidworld. In the chapters that follow, we will try to think about whatit takes to navigate life successfully by using the tools, developingthe skills, and following the examples the Lord has given.

INTRODUCTION

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ONE

OCEAN BOUND

When Ferdinand Magellan finally emerged from the tumultuousstraits at the southern tip of South America that now bear his

name, he wept for joy. For months, he had searched the coastline tofind a passage to the west. The one he found proved to be difficultbeyond imagining. For thirty-eight days, he and his men had battleda treacherous, unexplored body of water that even today is not aneasy place for ships. The modern pilot manual warns sailing shipsthat it is “both difficult and dangerous, because of incomplete sur-veys, the lack of aids to navigation, the great distances betweenanchorages, the strong current, and the narrow limits for the maneu-vering of vessels.”1 Imagine what it was like for the very first toattempt the journey! “Only Magellan’s iron courage against the ele-ments and his deft mastery of men kept him going.”2

Magellan’s tears were tears of joy for a victory hard won and agoal about to be realized. When he was told that his men had seenthe cape and the open sea and had tasted the salty water, he “calledthat cape, Cape Dezeado [Desire], for we have been desiring it fora long time.”3 As Magellan wept, his men sang hymns, the gunnersfired their cannons, and the flag of Spain was unfurled. Charles V,the king of Spain, had commissioned Magellan to find a passagearound South America to what Balboa had called the Mar del Sur,the Southern Sea. He was then to sail westward to the Spice Islands,which we know as the Moluccas, part of modern Indonesia. WhenMagellan broke through to the Pacific on November 28, 1520, hehad already been underway for fourteen months. But he felt surethat the worst was behind him. His maps told him that within a few

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days, or at the most a few weeks, he would reach the Spice Islandsand become the first to circumnavigate the world. He had alreadysailed to the Spice Islands from the east.

Little did Magellan know that his information was tragically inerror. The problem was that no one had developed a reliable way tomeasure longitude. As a result, even the best estimates available tohim underestimated the size of the Pacific Ocean by 80 percent. Themost popular globe of the world showed Japan about one hundredmiles off the coast of Mexico. “For Magellan, the extent of thePacific was an excruciating surprise! Of course, it would also be hisgreatest and his most unwilling discovery.”4

No one suspected that they were headed for tragedy as theysailed to the north. The sea was calm, the air balmy, and the windsconsistent. For their whole journey, they did not experience a sin-gle storm, which seemed to confirm the name they had given thisocean, Pacific. But if they didn’t encounter storms, neither did theyencounter land. Week followed week, and the shortage of suppliesbecame desperate. Six weeks out of the straits, men began to die.

Such food as the three ships carried began to rot under thesoggy tropical airs. The penguins and seals they had killed andsalted in Patagonia started to turn putrid; maggots raged throughthe ship, eating clothes and supplies and rigging; water suppliesturned scummy and rank. Men began to develop the classicsymptoms of scurvy—their teeth loosened in their gums, theirbreath began to smell horribly sour, huge boils erupted fromtheir shrunken frames, they sank into inconsolable melancholia.5

Conditions only got worse. The crew was reduced to eatingrats, ox hides soaked in the sea, and, finally, sawdust. Even Magel-lan broke under the strain. In a fit of rage, he threw all his chartsoverboard, shouting, “With the pardon of the cartographers, theMoluccas are not to be found in their appointed place!” It wasn’tuntil March 6, 1521, that the ships made landfall at Guam. The voy-

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age that was supposed to have taken four or five days had takenthree months and twenty days and cost the lives of nineteen menand the debilitation of the entire crew. By the time the expeditionwas over, only eighteen of the original 238 remained. Magellanhimself was killed when he was caught in the middle of tribal war-fare in the Philippines.

When our maps are accurate, they enable us to navigate unfa-miliar terrain with confidence and skill. But when our maps areinaccurate or out of date, they become at best a nuisance and atworst a terrible danger. As Magellan ventured into uncharted terri-tory, wrong maps were far worse than no maps. They gave him falseexpectations, which endangered the lives of all his men. His situa-tion was made worse by navigational devices that could not answerhis most urgent questions.

Our modern world resembles a vast, uncharted ocean. We areno longer in familiar territory. Huge changes are sweeping across ourworld, which have made our maps obsolete. We have never beenhere before. A fundamental fact of life in the third millennium is thatnothing is as permanent as change. Some people claim that thetwentieth century experienced more change than all previoushuman history; and the 1990s, more changes than the previousninety years. It isn’t possible to prove such claims, but there can beno doubt that the rate of change in our world is not only high butalso accelerating exponentially. Rapid change is an inescapable real-ity in every sphere of life, not just in obvious areas such as tech-nology and demographics. Change is not only continual; it isdiscontinuous. That is, it is not just the past being recycled in newforms; it is old landmarks being dismantled, and a new order ofthings coming into being, which no one can truly predict. Thiscreates a world of continual, discontinuous, unpredictable, acceler-ating change—and this is the context in which modern Christ-followers are called to live out their commitment to the Lord JesusChrist.

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The technological changes that are reshaping modern life con-front us every day. We daily take for granted things that were non-existent a few years ago or were reserved for the favored few. I am acomputer novice, bravely trying to find my way in a strange newworld. But, even at the level of my incompetence, I am amazed at theamount of information placed at my fingertips and my instant abil-ity to be in contact with the other side of the world at the click of amouse. Who hasn’t marveled or given thanks for advances in thefield of medicine that save the lives of loved ones or allow us to sur-vive once hopeless problems? Laborsaving devices enable us toenjoy lifestyles earlier generations never imagined. The list of suchchanges is endless, and each one subtly but surely shapes our viewof life.

As I write, I am flying from my home in Southern California tomy childhood home city of Vancouver, Canada. Both areas pro-foundly illustrate our changing world. One of the men in our con-gregation in California runs a translation agency. He tells me that hehas provided translation services in an astonishing 120 differentlanguages. The world truly has come to Southern California, andthere is no longer a majority ethnic group. In Vancouver, the beautyof the mountains and the ocean makes me feel instantly at home. Yetmy parents’ home is gone, replaced by a larger one, and Chinese hasbecome the predominant language on my elementary school play-ground. Parts of the city resemble Hong Kong more than they do thevery British city of my youth. Other areas feel like India.

Globalization is a fact, one that affects us in many subtle ways.For example, in the 1960s, futurologists boldly declared that theaverage worker would work fewer than thirty hours a week by theyear 2000. Reality is very different. The workweek is longer than itwas in 1965, not shorter, and families fight hard to carve out timefor things that matter. One factor is the global economy, which hasincreased competition and intensified pressure. The same techno-logical innovations that make some things easier also raise expec-

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tations and make it harder to get away from our work. Technologyis often a two-edged sword.

At a less visible but more important level, Western culture hasprofoundly changed. A major culture shift has taken place, radicallyredefining concepts of truth, morality, and spirituality. “Postmod-ernism” is a term most of us would have trouble defining. In someways, it is a mindset rather than a coherent philosophy. Neverthe-less, it has blanketed our culture like smog slowly creeping up theLos Angeles basin. We live in a postmodern world, and the Christ-ian consensus has been displaced. The assumption that our societyshould honor, at least officially, Judeo-Christian values, is no longeroperative. Diversity rules, tolerance is supreme, and relativism is theonly absolute. Sexual morality has given way to sexual preferences;the family has been replaced by a bewildering variety of families.Out-of-wedlock births have soared to tragically high rates, alongwith the number of absentee fathers. Religion is out; spirituality isin. But spirituality often amounts to little more than a pursuit ofspiritual experiences, a journey into one’s inner self or personaltruth, which makes the living God irrelevant. It is also no longerclear when a person uses the word God that he means anythingresembling the God of Scripture.

My purpose is not to induce cynicism or pessimism. Instead it isto point out that we are living in uncharted territory. The familiarlandmarks have vanished, and the old cultural maps are outdated. Sowe need to think not so much of maps as of navigational skills, notso much of travel guides as of principles that will help us find ourway through the fluid, complex, fast-changing ocean on which wehave to navigate. That is the purpose of this book, and it is built onthe conviction that God, in His Word, has given us exactly what weneed to navigate life well in the twenty-first century.

The changes we are experiencing are indeed massive and unpre-dictable. The future, whatever it is, will not be the logical extensionof the past. We truly are in uncharted territory. But no matter how

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extensive these changes prove to be, they will not surpass thechanges experienced by the first followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.Before they met Him, their lives were relatively predictable. Theywere simple working people whose world had narrow and clearlydefined boundaries. Their land was small; their opportunities werefew; their education was limited; their ambitions were meager; theirvision was narrow. For the most part they expected to live, love,work, and rear a family in Galilee, with occasional visits toJerusalem, where they would reaffirm their intention to live and diewithin the familiar boundaries of Judaism. In many ways, theirfuture was like the lake by which they lived and on which some ofthem made their livings—small, familiar, but subject to occasionalstorms. Then they met Jesus and began to follow Him as Lord. Theyhad no idea that they were going to leave their little lake, literallyand symbolically, and venture onto the ocean of God’s purposes.Men whose world had been small and familiar would be led bytheir Lord to places they had never imagined going, to do thingsthey had never imagined doing. In the process, God used them tolaunch a world-engaging, world-transforming movement under thebanner of their Lord. It is tremendously encouraging to me to rec-ognize that the first disciples had none of the natural abilities wewould expect in such people. Seeing how these first Christianslearned to navigate the uncharted waters of their new world pro-vides an example for us.

The disciples didn’t need to learn to navigate the Lake of Galilee.They had spent their lives on its waters and around its shores.Everything was familiar, and at their furthest from shore, they werenever out of sight of land. But the Lord used a morning on that laketo begin to plant the idea that He had a mission for them greaterthan their wildest imagination. The story is told in Luke 5:1-11.

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,with the people crowding around him and listening to the

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word of God, he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there bythe fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into oneof the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to putout a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the peo-ple from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put outinto deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night andhaven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will letdown the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large numberof fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled theirpartners in the other boat to come and help them, and theycame and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees andsaid, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he andall his companions were astonished at the catch of fish theyhad taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee,Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now onyou will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore,left everything and followed him.

Lawrence Peter once wrote a book that humorously describedsomething we have all experienced. He called it The Peter Principleand stated it in these words: “In a hierarchy, people tend to rise to thelevel of their incompetence.” His insights began when he mailed allthe documents required to obtain a teaching certificate to the requiredagency, only to receive the package back a few weeks later. Anexplanatory letter accompanied the material: “New regulationsrequire that such forms cannot be accepted by the Department of Edu-cation unless they have been registered at the Post Office to ensuresafe delivery. Will you please re-mail the forms to the department,

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making sure to register them this time.” The logic of returning safelydelivered mail to ensure safe delivery epitomizes the Peter Principle.Unfortunately, sometimes it seems like official government policy.

In the gospel, we find something very different at work, beau-tifully illustrated in the life of the apostle Peter. We could call it thePeter Paradigm: “In Christ, people can rise to the level of their God-given potential.” The Lord saw in Peter what no one else saw, andthe Lord’s presence in Peter’s life meant that Peter experienced acontinually expanding sphere of competence and influence. Thatprocess is evident in this encounter, which becomes almost a patternof the way the Lord works in the lives of His followers.

ShallowWater: The Lord Uses My Boat

One Sabbath day, the Lord Jesus visited the synagogue in His home-town of Nazareth and claimed the words of Isaiah 61:1-2 as adescription of Himself:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointedme to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to pro-claim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for theblind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of theLord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

The Lord was not only declaring that He was the fulfillment ofprophecy; He was declaring His kingdom manifesto. This was thepattern of His life, a ministry of bringing broken people to wholeness.Luke describes the ministry of the Lord Jesus as He moved throughGalilee, a part of Palestine notorious for its spiritual darkness and itscultural diversity, healing and teaching. It was a ministry of trans-formation within those who became His followers, and His prioritywas clear: “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God tothe other towns also, because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43).

Then, in Luke 5, we find another fundamental principle of Hisministry: He comes to bring transformation not only within His peo-

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ple but also through His people. He enlists ordinary human beingsto become agents of His kingdom in the sphere of influence wherethey are and then to enlarge that sphere of influence, as He directs.This is not only a first-century phenomenon. This is the way theLord works in the lives of His followers in every time and place, andthe pattern given in these early verses of Luke 5 is one He providesfor His people in the third millennium as well. “As the Father hassent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

We would misread Luke 5, however, if we saw this as the origi-nal encounter of these men with Jesus. In the previous chapter, weare told that Jesus had spent time in the home of Simon (that is,Peter) and that the Lord had healed Peter’s mother-in-law. The gospelof John fills in more details. It describes Peter’s initial meeting withthe Lord Jesus and the Lord’s words: “You are Simon son of John. Youwill be called Cephas” (John 1:42). It is clear that Peter, at that point,became a disciple, although his knowledge of Jesus was rudimentary,and John describes the other disciples accompanying Jesus as Hemoved through Judea and Galilee.

But Peter remained a fisherman, making his living on LakeGalilee, or, as it was also known, the Lake of Gennesaret. And onthis particular morning, he and his companions were doing typicalfishermen’s chores, washing and mending their nets after a night’sfishing. This was business as usual, made different only by the pres-ence of Jesus, who was accompanied by a large crowd listening toHis teaching. Luke mentions the crowd, but that’s not where hisinterest is. He focuses our attention on the interaction betweenPeter and his Lord.

At some point, Jesus moved close enough to get into Peter’sboat, and asked him to push out from shore. This was not a majorrequest, and it made sense. People could more easily see and hearthe Lord if He was a few feet offshore. But it was an interruption ofPeter’s activities, and the boat was relatively sizable. A typical first-century Galilean fishing boat, according to archaeological discovery,

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measured about twenty-eight feet in length and eight feet in width.Pushing a boat of that size out into the water required special effort.It also meant pulling in the nets and storing them in their properplace in the boat. Peter did not object, and there is no suggestionthat he felt anything but a sense of privilege in serving his Lord. Hegranted the Lord’s request and pushed out from shore, far enoughfor the water to act as a natural acoustic system. I can imagine hissense of satisfaction as he sat there, watching the Lord teach andinstruct the crowds. He had allowed his resources to be used in thefurtherance of the kingdom, and that was deeply satisfying. Petervalued Jesus and he loved fishing, and now the two were beinglinked in an exciting way.

I think the Lord often does that, recruiting us into kingdomministry at entry level. The first stage is to become a Christ-follower,experiencing the joy of a life-changing relationship with the LordJesus. Stage two is when we realize that the Lord wants to use some-thing we possess as a means of furthering the kingdom. It may be askill or ability. It may be a position of influence. Perhaps it is aphysical possession or monetary resources. Whatever our boat is,the Lord asks to use it, tells us to put out from shore, and allows usto watch as He uses our boat in a way that furthers His purposes. Itis a thrilling experience when the Lord chooses to use somethingthat we own to make a permanent difference in the lives of otherpeople.

But consider this fair warning. The Lord isn’t content just to useour boat. He has a disconcerting way of taking it over, as Peter soondiscovered.

Pushing Deeper: The Lord Takes Over My Boat

The Lord finished His message and suddenly turned to Peter. Hisnext words came as a command, not a request: “Put out into deepwater, and let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). This is some-thing different. The Lord is not merely using the boat; He is taking

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over. This whole episode takes place at His initiative, and Hisdemand is a significant one. Setting out the nets was not only con-siderable work in itself; it meant repeating all the work of washingand refolding them. To what purpose? Any novice fisherman onLake Galilee knew that midmorning was not the time for fishing.And this doesn’t involve Peter alone. The Lord’s first command,“Put out into deep water,” is singular, addressed to Peter as themaster of the boat. The second command is plural: “[You, plural],let down the nets.” Peter’s crew is to be involved in this apparentlyuseless activity. Some of them might have wondered, Why is a car-penter giving orders to fishermen?

Peter’s response is intriguing: “Master, we’ve worked hard allnight and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will letdown the nets” (Luke 5:5). Peter begins with respect (the termMaster obviously acknowledges Jesus’ authority) and ends with sub-mission. But he is reluctant. For good reason. After all, Peter is theexpert on fishing. He has spent all his life on the lake, and he knowsit like the back of his hand. First, it is the wrong time for fishing.Deep-water fishing took place at night and early morning, and themen had just returned from a futile night of hard work. Second, itis the wrong place. For whatever reason, the fishing is bad. I won-der if Peter thought what I often feel: “It’s okay for the Lord to usemy boat for religious purposes. But not for fishing. That’s where I’mthe expert!” Sometimes it is harder to trust the Lord in the areas ofour strengths than in the areas of our weaknesses.

Scholars discuss whether this is a miracle of knowledge (Jesusknew the fish were there) or of power (He brought them there).What does it matter? It is undeniably a miracle. The catch over-whelms the capacity of the nets, the boats, and the fishermen. Evenwhen help comes, the catch is so large that it endangers both boats.The Lord is making a point: When our expertise is surrendered toHis directions, we become effective beyond our imagining. Heknows our business even better than we do.

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This becomes a defining moment for Peter. It isn’t the catch thatimpresses him but the Lord. He abandons the frantic activity of try-ing to save the catch and the boats and falls at Jesus’ knees. “Go awayfrom me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). Peter has a newrespect for Jesus, indicated by the new term he uses to describe him:“Lord.” Moments before he had called Him “Master,” a clear term ofrespect. Now he calls Him “Lord.” This is not just a stylistic differ-ence. Peter is beginning to understand that Jesus is no mere man, butsomething far more. He is beginning to realize that Jesus belongs ina very different category from that shared by ordinary sinful humans.Over the course of time, Peter would come to realize that Jesus heldthat title Lord in the highest sense. At a crowning moment in his ownlife, Peter would declare, “You are the Christ, the Son of the livingGod” (Matthew 16:16). In his second epistle, he would describeHim as “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11), which iswhy in his first epistle he exhorted Christ-followers: “in your heartsset apart Christ as Lord” (1 Peter 3:15). On his knees before Jesus ina sinking boat full of wriggling fish, that is what Peter was beginningto do.

Peter not only recognizes Jesus for who He is (Lord) but alsosees himself for who he is, a sinner. In the light of the Lord’s great-ness, he feels unworthy and overwhelmed. He recognizes his imma-turity and inadequacy, not because the Lord has revealed hisshortcomings but because He has revealed His own glory. A fewminutes earlier, Peter had pushed his boat out in what he was con-vinced was a futile effort in an empty lake. By obeying the Lord, hehad not only made the catch of a lifetime, but had also experienceda revolution in the way he saw all of life, himself included. Little didhe know the journey had barely begun!

Ocean Bound: The Lord Expands My Horizon

The Lord makes it clear that this is a defining moment, a turningpoint: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men” (Luke

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5:10). Until this moment, Peter’s world was not much bigger thanthe lake he fished. He had seen his future as one of catching and sell-ing fish. But from now on, nothing would be the same. He hadbeen spoiled for little things, because he had seen Jesus through theeyes of faith.

The Lord had a purpose for Peter that was deeper and richerthan anything he could imagine: “You will keep on catching peo-ple.” I don’t know what Peter imagined that meant, and the Lordmakes no attempt to explain it to him. Peter had no possibility ofknowing what the future held: where he would go, what he woulddo, who he would become. In fact, had he known, he would havebeen overwhelmed and afraid. He only knew that in some way theLord was inviting him to join in an adventure that would indeliblyaffect not only his life but also the lives of many others. He knewthat he needed and longed to follow Jesus.

Peter wasn’t alone. His friends and partners, James and John,had been watching carefully. Suddenly, the greatest catch of theirlives, the kind fishermen talk and dream about, had no power tohold them. “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everythingand followed him” (Luke 5:11). As the missionary statesman E.Stanley Jones once put it: “I looked into His face and was foreverspoiled for anything unlike Him.” It was a following that was goingto catapult them away from their little lake into the ocean of God’spurposes.

This is an actual event in the life of our Lord. It speaks to us onthe level of history. It also speaks on another level, and that is oneof pattern. Luke is concerned in his gospel and in the book of Actsto tell us not only what the gospel is but also how it reaches out tothe ends of the earth. The gospel of Luke is the story of all that Jesusbegan to do in His earthly life (Acts 1:1); Acts is the story of all thatHe continues to do through His people. Here, in the beginning of hisstory, Luke reports an episode that establishes a pattern the Lord willfollow. He brings transformation in His people and then through His

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people. He keeps pushing us into deeper water until we find our-selves out of our depths, navigating uncharted waters, as agents ofhis kingdom. This picture helps me think more clearly about whatit means to be a Christ-follower in the third millennium.

A Christ-follower allows the Lord to establish the destination. Nav-igators must be able to answer two crucial questions: Where do Iwant to go? Where am I now? If we don’t have the answer to thosequestions, we may be cruising or we may be drifting, but we aren’tnavigating. We spend a lot of time thinking about where we arenow; we spend much less time considering where we are going.Many try to use the obvious markers of success to chart their course:money, comfort, fame, pleasure, power, status. These things may begood and valuable as resources, but they are dangerous as goals.

Fast Company is a business magazine that chronicles the fast-paced businesses of the new economy. One insightful issueaddressed the question: How much is enough? The editor beganwith this observation:

People who are winning at the gaming tables of the neweconomy must ask this perplexing question: How Much isEnough? . . . Ceaseless striving is indelibly stamped on theAmerican character. The American Dream . . . says that we canhave it all. The American Reality whispers that when you doget it all, you’ll only want more.6

The fact is that no human harbor can satisfy the heart. We needto know what the Lord’s goal is for us and to set sail for it. Wise nav-igators make sure that they know where they are headed.

A Christ-follower practices celestial navigation. Wise navigatorsalso make sure that they know where they are. Following Jesus wasradically different from following a normal Jewish rabbi. If Peter hadset out to follow a rabbi, he would have received an elaboratelydetailed map and accompanying handbook that answered everyquestion and addressed every situation. There would have been

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codes of conduct for every situation. But those would never havetaken Peter where the Lord intended him to go, into the unchartedwaters of the Gentile world to build a church for all peoples. TheLord didn’t give His people maps; He taught them to navigate. Thosenavigational principles are as relevant to the twenty-first century asthey were to the first. There are navigational fixed points (the NorthStar), navigational tools (sextants, compasses, chronometers), andnavigational skills. All of these have their spiritual counterparts, aswe shall see in the following chapters. The crucial thing is to rec-ognize that the postmodern world is too complex and fluid formaps. We must learn to navigate.

However, it is difficult to navigate a sinking ship, so we alsomust know how to keep the water out of the boat.

A Christ-follower cares about seaworthiness. Wise Christians careabout character, about what our condition is below the waterline,where no one else can see. Long before the Lord did somethingthrough Peter, He did something in Peter. That is always the Lord’sway, and so we will take time to do some careful evaluation of ourseaworthiness in the chapters that follow. We will also track the livesof others who have gone before us to learn from their successes andfailures. We don’t have man-made maps to chart our way into thenew world. We have something much better—a living Lord, Hiseternal navigational instruments, and His indwelling Spirit.

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