I am so excited to travel around our state and share our theme for the 2016 South Carolina Baptist Convention annual meeting: “Launch Out,” which is based on Luke 5, where Jesus told Peter to launch out into the deep.

Initially, Peter responded to Jesus’ command as you or I would have —  with logic: “And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing” (Luke 5:5).

I can imagine Peter’s thoughts behind those words. “Jesus, really? You’re great at carpentry, and you’re a marvelous preacher, but how about we leave the fishing decisions to me? This is my specialty.” Peter had already toiled all night. He knew his work; he was a master fisherman.

What Jesus had just asked Peter to do was contrary to all of Peter’s training and experience. Even so, Peter made a watershed decision: “Nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net” (Luke 5:5).

There is a pattern I see repeated throughout Scripture: God often doesn’t intervene until the task is humanly impossible, and God loves impossible odds.

Remember Gideon, in Judges 7:2: “And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.” Gideon experienced the truth that faith does not operate in the realm of the possible.

George Müller said it well: “There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.”

Discipleship is not a life of logic or reasoning. It is a life of faith. When we are willing to follow Christ into deep, unfamiliar waters, we will have closer fellowship with Him. This comes simply out of the complete reliance upon Him to meet our every need and guide us in our way. When the only answer to a problem is dependence on God, we tend to listen to Him more closely and spend time with Him more often.

Those who launch out learn quickly that God accomplishes great things with a life wholly lived by faith, for “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6).

The Lord knows our limitations. He knew Peter’s fatigue, his doubt and his needs. Before we argue with Christ, we should try trusting Him! As the omniscient God, He knows us better than we know ourselves.

South Carolina Baptists, may we realize that all our programs and man’s ideas are nothing. God does not need the South Carolina Baptist Convention, but we definitely need God!

— Tom Tucker is pastor of Sisk Memorial Baptist Church in Fort Mill and president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.