After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in the following way. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

After the denial, after everything Peter swore he would never do, he does the one thing nobody expected. John 21:3. "I am going fishing." He hadn't fished in three years. He left those nets on the shore the day Jesus called him. But after the failure, after the guilt, after the weight of knowing that the very thing he promised would never happen... happened... Peter goes back. He picks up the old nets, gets in the old boat, pushes out into the same water he left behind, and he fishes all night.

And catches nothing.

So what I'm seeing is this. The old life doesn't work anymore. You can return to it, you can pick up what you set down, you can try to fit yourself back into the shape you used to be, but something has changed. The water is different once you've walked with Jesus. Peter is stuck between a calling he failed and a past he's outgrown, sitting in an empty boat in the dark, and I think some of you know exactly what that feels like.

Not because you denied Jesus out loud, but because you carried something for God that eventually broke you. Maybe it was a ministry. Maybe it was a marriage you were holding together by sheer will. Maybe you were pouring out for years and there was nothing left and one day you just... stopped. You didn't make a dramatic exit. You just quietly went back to what was safe, what was familiar, what didn't require the kind of vulnerability that got you hurt in the first place.

That's going fishing. That's picking up old nets because the new ones tore and you don't know what else to do.

But here's what I need you to grab hold of. Peter going back to the boat doesn't disqualify him from the calling. It just proves that the calling was never built on Peter's consistency in the first place. God doesn't look at your retreat and write you off. He doesn't see you sitting in that empty boat and say, "Well, I guess that's the end of that." He knows exactly where you are because He's about to show up on the shore.

And that's what happens. Verse 4. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore. Notice the timing. Not in the middle of the night while Peter was still working. Not during the effort. At daybreak. When the failure was complete. When Peter had given everything he had and come up empty, Jesus was standing right there, and He had been there the whole time.

Some of you have been fishing in the dark for a long time now, and it feels like nothing is working. Can I just say... daybreak is closer than you think. Because the same Jesus who called you the first time hasn't moved from the shore, and what He's preparing there isn't a rebuke. It's a meal, and that meal is going to change everything about the way you understand restoration.

Identify one thing you've picked back up out of safety or comfort that God may have already called you away from. Bring it to Him in prayer today and ask Him to meet you at the shore.