Letting go of our nets

The phrase is cliche, but the practice is still difficult.  This weekend I was back at my field education church for the first time since before Christmas, getting to do the prayers of the people, and seeing that the title of our pastor’s sermon was the title of this blog.  A woman in the congregation whose niece has been in a coma for a long time now, who has three young children, and who is doing worse not better got up and spoke about prayers needed.  When she added, however, that another woman from the congregation had decided on her own to sell her home and move down to take care of these children, it gave me hope.  Ordinary people do such extraordinary things everyday, even as war rages and violence continues.  At the end of the service, my commission challenged us all to think about which nets God is calling us to let go of and how truly transformed we might be if we answered these calls.  It’s so convicting to see this woman from my church respond in the way she did.