CThe sun was high when I walked through the door, Esther just arched her eyebrows and asked, “Breakfast or lunch?”
“Babe, I’m sorry I’m late”
“Never mind that Simon, Eli told me what happened. You must be exhausted, you fished all night and then you are gone all morning. Where were you? What is happening?” Breakfast or lunch?”
“Just some bread and olives will be fine, we cooked some fish for breakfast and ate while we talked.”
“And what did you talk about with this Jesus? How to build a table or fit at door? Or were you teaching him how to fish? What do you even have in common with this man?” The questions rolled out, one after another.
“Carpentry and fishing weren’t mentioned at all. Jesus talked about stuff that I had never really thought of before, I mean I had probably thought about them but hadn’t really thought about them. Does that even make sense?”
“What type of stuff?”
“Stuff that I’ve thought about while fishing. Like; What does God really want from me? It seems like everyone wants something from me, but they don’t always agree and if I tried to do everything that people say I should do where would I find time to live?”
“Simon, this is so unlike you. I never knew that you spent time thinking about God.”
“That’s the thing, nobody knows that side of me, I’ve never talked about it to you or Andrew or anyone, and yet I’ve only met Jesus twice and he looks at me and says ‘Peter’, that’s what he calls me now, ‘Peter, all God wants is that you love him and love others. It’s just that simple.’”
And I say, “It can’t be that simple.” And he just smiled and nodded.
“Esther, he wants me to be one of his disciples, to spend time with him so I can learn from him”
“Simon, I don’t even know what to say. This is a side of you I’ve never seen, you’ve always told me how much you hated the days you had to spend at cheder and now you want to spend your spare time listening to a teacher you’ve only just met?”
“Not just my spare time Esther, most of my time, he wants me to leave fishing and to travel with him.”
“You mean leave home, leave me? How will we survive? He can’t be serious, you can’t be serious”
“Not like leaving for good, but he did say that there would be times that we might be away for days at a time and that we shouldn’t worry, that we just need to trust God.
Eli will be able to handle the business and if he needs help you have a bunch of nephews who love being on the boat.
Esther, I don’t know where this is going but Jesus said it was time for me to fish for men, I don’t know what that means, but honey it’s something I have to do.”
And then she said those words that all married men dread, “Well Peter, do what you want to do.”