Follow me, and I will make you fish for people. -Matthew 4:19

I often wonder about the disciples who dropped everything to follow Jesus. I especially wonder about James and John, sons of Thunder, who left their father in the boat still mending the nets as his sons walked away to follow the new guy from Galilee. What was it they heard in Jesus’ voice to make them drop everything? To give up the lives and comforts they knew? To literally change everything?

What is it any of us hear?

Something about following Jesus changes us. Jesus tells the fishermen if they follow him, he will alter their way of being. He will change their goals (fish for people, not fish) and he will give them a new dream (I have the song from Tangled stuck in my head…). Follow me, Jesus said, and I will show you a different way of being.

The other piece I find interesting (and also comforting) is that Jesus builds on what they already have. They will fish for people. These guys understood fish and all things related to fishing. It’s nice to know that even when Jesus calls us to follow him and find a different way of being, the skillset we already have – some of what we already know – will be sufficient to begin. Often, we think we need to learn so many new things before we begin something. I will do this after I know this or do that. We limit ourselves by our own imaginations when Jesus reveals to the disciples that all they need to do to begin is show up with all they are and all they already know. The message is clear: you are enough.

Can we also trust that we are enough? Can we trust that when Jesus calls us to pivot or imagine a new way of being – a new way of being a Jesus-follower, a new way of being church – that we already have what we need to begin? We are enough. We will learn along the way and pick up new skills. We will not truly follow Jesus and stay unchanged. But Jesus calls us as we are, and we are enough for right now.

May the reminder that Jesus calls us as we are and we are enough right now bring each of us some comfort even as we imagine what God may be calling us into in this new year.