Don’t Stop Believin’

By Grant Gaines

It was the biggest game of the season for the rival California Golden Bears and the Stanford Cardinal. As the clock was winding down on the heated rivalry game in late November of 1982, Stanford’s All-American quarterback John Elway led his team down for a go-ahead field goal with only four seconds left in the fourth quarter as the Cardinal led the Bears 20-19.

The Stanford fans were going nuts, the players were giving each other congratulatory hugs, and the band began tuning their instruments with Stanford’s fight song as the ball was kicked off. But quickly the routine kickoff and defensive stand for the Cardinal turned into what is recognized as one of the most memorable moments in college football history and is now simply known as “The Play”.

After receiving the kickoff from Stanford, Cal quickly began lateralling the ball back and forth amongst their teammates as they avoided tacklers left and right. Several times throughout the play it appeared as though the ball carrier would surely be stopped and Stanford would hold onto the hard fought victory. In fact, the Cardinal band director was so certain that the game was over that he led the Stanford band onto the field to begin the victory celebrations.

But even though the final horn on the scoreboard had sounded and the marching band was on the field, the play was not yet over as the Bears continued to avoid defenders and eventually made their way into the end zone for an unbelievable win over their arch rivals 25-20.

I believe as Christians we have the tendency to do the same—we metaphorically send the band onto the field when in reality the play is still alive.

What I mean by this is that we will pray, share the Gospel, and love on someone for so long in hopes that they will either come to salvation, a prodigal child will return, or a life-threatening disease will be miraculously healed only to be sitting there weeks, months, or years later with no resolution to the problem and it’s easy to give up hope.

We’ve all been in a situation like this at one time or another. These situations when it seems like all hope is gone is something that every human being will face at one point in their lives. And it is at this point when our destiny seems etched in stone and our fate seems written in the stars that we need to follow the advice of the band Journey and, “Don’t Stop Believin’”. At least that’s the message that Jesus seems to suggest in Luke 5.

“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around Him and listening to the Word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to [Peter], and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then He sat down and taught the people from the boat. When He had finished speaking, He said to [Peter], ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch’” (Luke 5:1-4, NIV).

Peter had just spent the entire night fishing and didn’t catch one single fish (Luke 5:5). It wasn’t like Peter had just gone out for a fun day on the lake to practice his hobby—fishing was his livelihood. And it’s not like Peter was bad at fishing either—most historians believe that Peter was one of the best fishermen of his time because of how large his house was which indicates that he must have been remotely successful at his craft. And now, for all Peter knew, some no-name, small-town Carpenter named Jesus (Jesus had not yet called Peter to be His disciple) was asking him to go back out into the water.

You can almost hear the frustration in Peter’s voice as he replied to Christ’s command by saying, “…Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything…” (Luke 5:5, NIV). Peter had, in a sense, sent the “band onto the field”—he had given up his hopes of catching any fish that day. In Peter’s mind, the day was over, all hope was gone, and it was time to move on to the next day. He had even started washing his nets!

But Jesus wasn’t ready to call it quits just yet. So after wrapping up His teaching, Jesus asked Peter to give it one more go—“Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch”. Jesus didn’t just want Peter to drop his nets where he was at, Peter needed to row out several miles away to the deep water and dirty his recently cleaned and folded nets. And to Peter’s credit, that’s exactly what he did (Luke 5:5b).

The results of Peter’s persistance? “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink” (Luke 5:6-7, NIV).

The band was on the field and Peter was hanging his head in defeat. But when you’re on God’s team you can never count out hope.

I wonder if God is preaching a similar message to you today. Don’t give up hope, don’t stop believin’, don’t wash your nets just yet. God has given us, “…new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, NIV, bold mine). Keep praying, keep loving, keep believing. For all you know, today could be the day of your big catch!

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