My husband walked into my study one morning when I was reading John 21. He pivoted and immediately left the room, because I had just burst out crying. He didn’t figure he should be there.

He couldn’t have known that what would become my favorite prayer had just leaped out of the pages of God’s word and into my heart.

In this post-resurrection appearance, Jesus, standing in the morning sun, calls to his disciples from the shore: “Friends, haven’t you any fish?“ The disciples do not realize it is Jesus calling; nevertheless, they do what the man tells them and throw their empty net on the right side of the boat. When they couldn’t haul the net in for the great number of fish, John says, “It is the Lord!“

John’s understanding there could be no other explanation almost made me cry, but what Peter did pushed the tears past any “let’s be sensible here” barrier.

Putting on his outer garment, for this was the proper way to greet someone in that day and place, Peter jumped into the water to greet the Lord! Ah, such exuberance, such love.

Every day in our lives God does great things, and so I’ve written this prayer at the beginning of John 21:

“Lord, keep me from being oblivious to your working. Help me, like John, to know when something marvelous happens, it is because of you. Then help me, like Peter, to respond by coming to you properly, but with adoring abandonment.“