The question I have for you today is, how will your life changed today? We're just coming along to have a great time or are we coming for a life changing event? And you know what? You get to decide. You get to decide if today is a life changing event or just another thing on your calendar. You get to decide that. Why? Because we're responsible. We're responsible. We're response able, we're capable of responding. You're going to have every chance in the world today to have a life changing experience. But this is what I know for sure. It's not about what I have to say. It's not about what Elliot has to sing. It's not about what the other speakers will say today. It's about what God is going to do in your heart and say in your heart to you today. And can we actually learn to listen to that? Can we learn to listen to that?
When I was a kid, John Paul II came to Sydney and my dad took me to mass and it was like three million people there. I'm like six miles away from the Pope. I'm looking at him on a big screen like that. But I remember that after communion, he kneeled down to pray and he closed his eyes. And you could just tell that he was going to a place deep, deep, deep within him. You could also tell that he lived his life from that deep place.
Find that deep place within you. We've all got it. Find that deep place within you where you can connect with God, discover that best version of yourself, God's dream for you and begin to live your life in that deep place, because the world doesn't need any more people living a shallow life. The church doesn't need any more people living shallow and superficial lives. The world and the church need a few brave souls who are willing to go to that deep place, find that deep place and start to live their life from that deep place.
There's a great story in the Gospels. Jesus comes along one morning and the disciples they've been out fishing all night. And Jesus says, Jesus. And Jesus says, well just set off the boats and put down the nets and you'll get a big catch. Now we know historically now that the type of boats that they would've been fishing with and the type of nets they would've been fishing with, that's probably a two or a three hour exercise. Okay? It wasn't just, oh, just nudge the boat out there and put the nets. It wasn't like a tad pole net. And you know what the disciples were thinking, right?
They're thinking, hold on a minute, preacher boy, we are expert fishermen. This is what we do. You might be good with healing the sick and feeding the 5,000 and all that sort of stuff, even raising people from the dead, but we are expert fishermen. That's counterintuitive, right? It was counterintuitive for those guys to set their nets out, to take the boats back out, but they did it. Why? Faith. Faith requires us to do things very, very often that are counterintuitive, counter to the world's wisdom, but deeply steeped in God's wisdom. Find that deep place within you because just like the disciples, if you set your nets down into the deep, God will give you an enormous catch.
Matthew Kelly
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