What are the nets in your life?

What are the nets in your life? 

In our Gospel today, we hear the call of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, who were fishermen. This was the moment when they began to be Jesus’ disciples.  The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes that “immediately they left their nets and followed him.”  Being a disciple of Jesus was not a hobby, or something they did once in a while, while still remaining fishermen.  But somehow, Jesus’ invitation was so arresting that they left behind the one thing they absolutely needed in order to make a living – their nets.  This was a decisive moment – from now on, they were no longer fishermen.

The image of a net can represent things that might hold us back from responding to Jesus’ call, His invitation to follow Him.  Nets are good things for fishermen, they need them to catch fish.  But even fishermen can get tangled in their own nets sometimes.  A vocation is not a calling from God to choose between something bad and something good, but between something good and something good.  Sometimes we can be so attached or tangled up with some of the good things in our lives that we aren’t free enough to respond to Jesus’ invitation to choose one specific good.

What are some of the nets in your life?  What are some of the things you think you absolutely cannot go without in life?  Jesus does not want to erase them from your life, but is He inviting you to do something different with them?