The Way
Thursday, April 9, 2026 | He Made Breakfast
– 2 min read
Scripture
John 21:9-12
"When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, 'Bring some of the fish you have just caught.' Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast.' None of the disciples dared ask him, 'Who are you?' They knew it was the Lord."
The Story
Peter had gone back to fishing.
After the resurrection, after the empty tomb, after the locked room where Jesus had appeared and shown them his hands and side — Peter went back to what he knew. He had denied Jesus three times. He had watched the crucifixion from a distance. Whatever the resurrection meant, it had not yet resolved the thing that was broken inside him.
So he went fishing. And Jesus came to the shore and made breakfast.
Not a rebuke. Not a confrontation. A fire, fish, bread, and an invitation to come and eat. Before the three questions that would restore Peter to his calling, there was simply a meal on the beach — the risen Christ tending a fire and feeding the man who had failed him most visibly.
That is where Jesus chose to start.
The Way Before You
The resurrection does not skip over the people who fell short of it.
Peter is the most important figure in the early church. He would preach the first sermon at Pentecost, lead the apostles through their first persecution, and eventually give his life for the name he had once denied three times in a single night. None of that was possible without this morning on the beach — without the fire, the fish, the bread, and the man who came to find him not after he had sorted himself out, but while he was still going back to what he knew before he knew Jesus.
The question this week is not whether the resurrection happened. It is whether it is allowed to be personal. Whether it reaches the specific thing in you that failed — the denial, the retreat, the going back to the old thing because the weight of what you did in the new thing was too heavy to carry.
Jesus did not wait for Peter to come to him. He came to the shore. He made breakfast. He called him by name.
He is doing the same thing right now, in exactly the circumstances you are in.
Reflection
What is the thing you went back to after the failure — and what would it mean to hear Jesus call you by name from the shore and say: come and have breakfast?
Prayer
Lord, I know what it is to go back to the old thing. To retreat to what I knew before, because what I did in the new thing is too heavy to face. You did not wait for Peter to come to you. You came to the shore. You made breakfast. You met him in the going-back, not the arrival. Meet me there too. Call me by name. I am ready to eat, and then to follow wherever you send me. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Walking in The Way — Today's Step ⭐
Today I will: Name the thing I went back to after the failure — and let the risen Christ meet me there rather than waiting until I have sorted myself out.
I will watch for: The moment I feel too far gone to be reinstated — and let that be the moment I remember that Jesus came to the shore for the man who denied him three times.
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