Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, "They were fishermen before they heard the call.
Casting their nets into the Sea of Galilee, Peter and Andrew stopped as Jesus
of Nazareth approached, looked into their eyes, and spoke the simple words,
‘Follow me.’ Matthew writes that the two fishermen ‘straightway left their
nets, and followed him.’ … ‘If the Savior were to call you today, would you be
just as willing to leave your nets and follow Him?’ I am confident that many
would. …
“… We might define a net as anything that entices or
prevents us from following the call of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.
Nets in this context can be our work, our hobbies, our pleasures, and, above
all else, our temptations and sins. In short, a net can be anything that pulls
us away from our relationship with our Heavenly Father or from His restored
Church.
I loved thinking about this idea of leaving our nets to follow the Savior. Were there things in my life I was not letting go of or holding onto that were keeping me from following the Savior completely? Were my priorities in the right order; where they should be?
I thought about Peter and how successful he was at his business. He had not had much luck finding fish and Jesus told him to "launch out into the deep" (Luke 5:4). Peter told Christ that they had been fishing all day and hadn't caught anything, but agreed to do what Christ said. As they let down the nets, they found that such a great multitude of fishes were caught that the net was going to break. They called for another ship to come and there was enough fish to fill both ships until they were about to sink.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said the following about Peter: "Launch out into the deep! Peter could not have known the ever-widening circles
that single command would make in the stream of his plain and simple life. He
was launching out into the expanse of godliness, into the eternal possibilities
of redeemed and celestial life. He would be learning the mysteries of the
kingdom. He would be hearing unspeakable things. To launch out into that
limitless sea of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Peter brought his craft to shore,
turned his back on the most spectacular single catch ever taken from Galilee,
‘forsook all, and followed him."
There have been times in my life where I experienced a reward from leaving my net and following Christ. In one circumstance a desire in my heart was actually changed. It was amazing to me to find that with the help of the Savior, and trusting in Him, I was able to let go of things in my life without the slightest indication of missing them. When we have faith to let go of our nets, we can launch into the deep and enjoy the "expanse of godliness" the accompany so many wonderful things in this life.
