Article March 19, 1921 Issue

Obedience

CHRISTINE EMERY

Throughout his earthly ministry Jesus constantly emphasized the necessity of work and obedience. "Occupy till I come," was not an idle precept with which he sought to impress his followers, for from earliest youth he recognized the dignity of labor and the imperative need of spiritual attainment. "Let us not be weary in well doing," said the apostle Paul.

In the fifth chapter of Luke we read, with the clearness of vision that comes to us when we study the words of the Bible aright, a story of simple fishermen, men of activities and environment quite foreign to those of modern times, and yet, so searching and eternal is the way of Truth, problems similar to theirs are recurring daily in the lives of present day disciples. These toilers had spent the night upon Lake Gennesaret, and wearied and discouraged by their season of fruitless effort they had brought their ships to land and when Jesus approached them they were busily washing their nets, thus indicating their unanimity of thought, which was apparently that as conditions were unfavorable it would be usless to continue their labor. But Jesus chose to remain entirely oblivious of this conclusion, for when he had spoken to the crowds that pressed about him, he turned to Simon, from whose ship he had addressed the multitude, and commanded him to launch out into the deep and let down their nets.

With sympathetic understanding we can visualize the scene and hear Simon's answer as he retold the story of their weary night and their final submission to the seemingly dominant material conditions: "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing," and a moment later we behold his positive refutation of material law and his instant and implicit reliance upon divine wisdom by the unquestioning obedience with which he concluded, "Nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net."

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