“What are you doing?” said my dear, never-to-be forgotten sister, to dear old Robert Lang, when she called to see him, hearing he was at home “bad,” and mending his nets. He was a fisherman by trade, and a fisher of men by grace, for all his life through, since childhood, he had heard of and known the Lord Jesus Christ, as his Saviour, Redeemer and God. “I do not see your nets about. What do you mean?”
“Well, miss,” he said,” I was reading about it in His precious Word at Mark 1:16-20,16Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 17And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 18And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. 19And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. 20And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him. (Mark 1:16‑20) when He said to Peter and John, as they were mending their nets in the boat, ‘follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ If our nets are broken, we shall lose the fish, for out they slip, and if our spiritual net is not whole, in not fully following Him, we shall let slip the word that may be blessed to our own and other people’s souls. Yes, miss, I am asking God to mend my net, as He has willed that I should suffer in body at the present. He has said to me, Robert, stop at home and mend your net, for there’s a hole and there’s a slip. My love is willing you may make a great draft of fishes, but you’ll toil day and night too, and catch nothing if you let down a broken net.’ So, says I, ‘All right, my Lord and Master. I’ll bide in till You give me word, and no time will be lost neither!’
“No offense,” he said; “don’t only be hoping your soul nets are all right, but look to ‘em, look to ‘em.’ A small slit soon becomes a large hole.”
And oh, friends, you must be washed, whole and empty. Washed in the fountain opened for sin in the precious blood of the Lamb; made whole by Him Who will fill us with all good things and mend us; empty, made empty by Him Who clears the soul of its sin and defiling rubbish, and refills it with the treasures of His grace,
Emily P. Leakey.