Most of us have believed at one point or another that before God would ever want anything to do with us, we'd need to sort ourselves out first. Fix the relationship. Kick the habit. Calm the anxiety. Become a better, tidier, more impressive version of who we are now. So we put off the whole question of faith until we're good enough — which, if we're honest, is never.

This week Dave Connolly took us back to the moment where Jesus first started gathering people around Him. It's a short story, just five verses, but they pack a punch. Because Jesus doesn't call the impressive people. He calls fishermen mid-shift. And He doesn't ask them to clean up first. He just says, "Follow me." This isn't another try-harder message. It's' the opposite.

The Story Happens on an Ordinary Tuesday

Jesus is walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He sees Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John doing exactly what they did every day, mending nets, working the boats, expecting another long shift of hard graft. These aren't religious experts or leaders or anyone you'd pick out of a crowd. They're ordinary people doing an ordinary job.

And Jesus says two words that change everything. Follow me.

"He saw some ordinary fishermen going about their daily work, ordinary people doing a daily job. And Jesus spoke two life-changing words to them."

And when you read this in Mark's account they respond immediately. Mark loves that word. It comes up again and again, like the whole thing has an urgency to it. They leave the nets, the boats, even the family business, and they go.

There was no return plan. James and John weren't walking away from nothing — they ran a successful operation, hired help, real security. They had something to lose. And they left it anyway, with no guarantee, no exit strategy, just a decision to trust the person calling them.

Why a Rabbi Choosing Fishermen Was Revolutionary

To feel how strange this is, you need a bit of background. In that world, a student would normally go and pick their own teacher, their own rabbi, and try to earn a place. Here it's flipped. The teacher chooses the students. And He chooses people nobody would have shortlisted.

That's the part worth holding onto. Jesus didn't begin with the qualified. He started with ordinary men, and the New Testament keeps that pattern going. As Paul put it in his first letter to the church in Corinth, God chose the foolish things to shame the wise, and the weak things to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27). The point isn't what these people could do. The point is what God could do through them.

Maybe you feel unqualified. Overlooked. Like you're not the type of person any of this is really for. The calling of these fishermen says the opposite. Jesus sees more in people than they see in themselves.

I Will Make You

This is where the pressure comes off.

Jesus says, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." He's talking to fishermen, so He uses fishing language — He's not going to start on about farming or building. But notice what He actually promises. Not you'll have to become impressive enough to do this. He says I will make you. The transformation is His job, not theirs.

It's not a striving. It's a surrender.

The disciples didn't have to manufacture change in their own strength. They just had to walk with Him, watch how He did things, and copy Him. That's really what a disciple was — someone learning to live like the person they followed. As Anna put it during Conversation Street, we so often hear people say I don't know if I'm ready, I'm not good enough yet. But it was never going to be them doing the work. It's God doing it in them. We're never quite ready. He takes us anyway.

If you've ever tried to be a better person by sheer effort, you'll know how that ends. You get tired. Dave's been a Christian a long time and he was honest about it — when you just make yourself busy doing God-shaped things in your own strength, all you get is worn out. The invitation isn't to try harder. It's to walk with Him and let Him do the making.

What Are the Nets You Won't Put Down

So if following Jesus is surrender, the real question becomes a personal one. The fishermen put down their nets. What are the nets for us?

Dave named four that most of us recognise:

• Fear — the quiet sense that it's safer not to risk it
• Pride — wanting to arrive already sorted rather than be helped
• Comfort — preferring the life we can control
• Self-reliance — the belief that we've got this on our own

It might also just be a distraction that's slowly crept in and now sits between us and any sense of God. Dave was candid here. For the first couple of years after he became a Christian, there was one area of his life he'd never really handed over. He wasn't even struggling with it. He just knew it was there, unsurrendered. And eventually it surfaced, and he walked away for around eighteen months, into a worse place than he'd started. The point he drew from it is freeing rather than frightening.

It's not about being perfect. It's about being surrendered.

You don't have to have everything fixed. You don't have to win the fight before you show up. You just have to be willing to bring the thing into the open and hand it over.

Following Jesus Looks a Lot Like Walking

There's a slower picture underneath all of this, and it's a good one. Years ago Dave used to walk a big park in Liverpool every week with a friend, just walking and talking. Someone once took a photo without them knowing — snow coming down, the two of them side by side, Dave watching the other man's face as he spoke. You don't get that from a quick phone call or five minutes in the car. You get it from walking together over time.

That's the kind of thing Jesus invited the disciples into. Not a quick interview to check they were clever enough. Not a programme to complete. He invited them right into His life — to walk closely with Him, watch how He handled things, and learn by being near.

There's a passage Anna read out that puts it beautifully. In Matthew, Jesus says:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me, watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

Unforced rhythms of grace. That's the antidote to all the striving. Grace, by the way, just means a gift you didn't earn and can't earn — God's love arriving before you've done anything to deserve it.

Worth saying clearly though, easy doesn't mean effortless. Jesus also said my yoke is easy, my burden is light — but a yoke is still something you wear. There's a walk to be walked. As Dave put it, the rope only chafes when you start pulling against the older, wiser, stronger ox beside you. Go His direction and it carries.

When You Wonder If God Even Likes You

During Conversation Street someone wrote in something raw. God hates me. Too much bad luck, too much stress.

If that's anywhere close to how you feel, it's worth hearing the answer plainly. God doesn't hate you. The whole story runs the other way — He sent His Son to seek out the lost, not to wait around for the people who already had it together. That feeling that God is against you doesn't come from God. It's a lie that keeps you at arm's length from the very person who's reaching for you.

This connects right back to the fishermen. Jesus chose a ragtag bunch of ordinary people. Not based on performance. Not on skill. Definitely not on education. And the invitation hasn't changed.

Someone else raised the old question of whether Jesus was even a real figure, or just a myth. The historical evidence is genuinely substantial — there's more documentation that Jesus existed than for plenty of figures we never doubt. But Dave's response cut to something simpler. If He's a myth, who is this that's transformed my life? Who is this now living in me? The four fishermen later went to their deaths rather than deny what they'd seen. People don't do that for a story they made up.

So What Do You Do With This

Here's where it gets practical for the week ahead.

1. Name your net. Be honest about the one thing you've quietly kept off-limits — fear, pride, comfort, self-reliance, a distraction. You don't have to fix it. Just stop pretending it isn't there.
2. Swap striving for surrender. Notice where you're trying to earn your way into being good enough, and let that go. The promise is I will make you, not you must make yourself.
3. Build in some walking. Find one regular, unhurried space — a walk, a coffee, a chapter of one of the Gospels — where you're simply spending time near Jesus rather than performing for Him. Dave's tip is a good one: stay in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for a while and let the character of Jesus rub off on you.
4. Don't do it alone. Jesus called twelve, not one. This was never meant to be a solo effort. Find people to figure it out alongside.
5. If you've drifted, just come back. Dave did. He came back to grace, not to a telling-off. The door isn't locked behind you.

The One Question Left

Notice what Jesus didn't ask the fishermen. He didn't ask if they were ready, qualified, or good enough. He just asked them to come.

The question was never whether Jesus is calling. He is, and the invitation is as real for you as it was for four men on a beach. The only question is whether you'll respond.

And if you're not sure He's even real, that's a completely fair place to start. You could pray something honest like Jesus, if you're real, show me — and see what happens. Or come and ask your questions with us. The Alpha Course is a relaxed few weeks of exactly those conversations, no pressure and nothing to lose, and Anna found it the place a lot of her own questions got answered.

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You don't have to be good enough first. You just have to come.

Whether you've been part of a church for years or have never set foot in one, there's a place for you here. Join the conversation at crowd.church, and if you've got real questions about faith and want somewhere honest to ask them, take a look at the Alpha Course at crowd.church/alpha. We'd love to walk this out with you.

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